Ateneo Blue Eagles coach Sergio Veloso during a UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball tournament game. –MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
Ateneo coach Sergio Veloso has an interesting way of looking at how the Blue Eagles started their UAAP Season 87 women’s volleyball tournament campaign.
Rather than looking at their first two games as losses, Veloso looks at those defeats simply as victories for their opponents.
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Stumped? Let him explain.
“It’s different when the opponent won and when our team lost. It’s a little different,” Veloso said as Ateneo picked up a first win after dragging University of the Philippines back to earth, 25-18, 25-22, 25-18, on Sunday at Mall of Asia Arena.
To open their season, the Eagles squandered a 2-0 set lead and fell to Adamson and rising rookie Shaina Nitura. They followed that up with a straight-sets loss to reigning queens National University in straight sets.
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After chopping down the Fighting Maroons in a sweep, to improve to a 2-1 (win-loss) record, Veloso doubled down on his perspective on things.
“We played in the last three matches, 11 sets. In these 11 sets, we lost one set—the third set with Adamson,” Veloso said. “It’s not our team [that lost], it’s just that Adamson won. We lost that set but the other sets, everybody played good.”
“I don’t like my team losing … There’s a little difference. I don’t know if you understand this but sometimes we win, sometimes the opponent wins,” he said.
Rising playmaker
Veloso does have reasons to be optimistic despite the rough start as different Eagles have stepped up in the three games to make up for injuries: AC Miner shone against the Soaring Falcons and again versus the Lady Bulldogs along with Alexia Montoro and Lyann De Guzman.
“We need to [play] like today [where we put good] pressure, all the time we gave pressure, pressure, pressure. In this situation, you cannot give a chance for the opponent to play better than us,” Veloso said of his injury-hit roster.
And in giving the Maroons their first loss, Veloso especially praised his playmaker Taks Fujimoto who tossed 14 excellent sets to activate well Sophie Buena, De Guzman and Miner. The three poured in 17, 14 and 12 points, respectively.
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“I just tried to make the most out of this game because I wasn’t able to help my teammates in those first two games,” Buena said. “My mindset going into this game was really to give my all and be a good teammate because we all work really hard.” INQ
