FOTON Pilipinas may have placed sixth in the 2016 Sealect Tuna Thailand Volleyball League.
But the valuable experience the team earned will serve the Tornadoes in good stead when they take part in the AVC Asian Women’s Club Championship starting this Saturday at the Alonte Sports Center in Binan City.
The Tornadoes landed in Manila late afternoon Monday following a fruitful campaign Thailand league, just in time for the coming Asian tourney where Asia’s best club teams will be seeing action.
Foton Pilipinas absorbed a sorry setback against the Thai national team led by stars Nootsara Tomkom and Pleumjit Thinkaow in the opener of the Sealect Tuna meet, followed by a four-set meltdown against reigning Asian champion Bangkok Glass.
But it didn’t crush the morale of the Tornadoes as they stormed back with a pair of victories over Rangsit University and Kasetsart University in the classification phase.
It, however, fell prey to 3BB Nokhonnont in its final battle, 25-19, 19-25, 24-26, 14-25, to settle for 6th place in the tourney that served as a good warm up for the Asian club tourney.
Foton Pilipinas head coach Fabio Menta of Italy emphasized that the outcome of the tourney hardly matters as he sees a lot of positive in the young team powered by Americans Lindsay Stalzer and Ariel Usher, with Jovelyn Gonzaga of RC Cola-Army, Aby Marano of F2 Logistics and Jen Reyes of Petron serving as guest players.
“We’re quite positive,” said Menta, who was formally appointed as head coach two weeks ago. “We played against quicker, more experienced players and gave court time to our younger Filipino players. This is what the club wanted to achieve and if you consider that we only worked together for two weeks and without two key players in Jaja (Santiago) and Jovelyn, coming back home with two victories is already a great result.”
The Asian club tourney will not be a walk in the park.
Ba’yi Army Shenzheng of China will be parading Asian U23 MVP Liu Yanhan and Olympic star Yuan Xinyue, while Bangkok Glass of Thailand will be bannered by Vietnamese middle blocker Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hoa and American wing spiker Ashley Frazier. NEC Red Rockets of Japan will also be tough as high-flying opener Sarina Koga will carry the cudgels together with Olympic star Haruyo Shimamura.
Menta said hitting the goal of a semifinal finish remains doable.
“It’s not going to be easy considering that all the other teams have been working together for months and we have 60% of the team joining now with a new coach,” he said. “But we have the talent to achieve that goal and we are working hard for that.”
He also added that as soon as they return to Manila, they would immediately address all their weaknesses.
“We need more solid blocking position and more consistency in the quick plays,” he said. “When we are disciplined at the block, which we proved in three straight games, all correlations would work fine.”