THE UNIVERSITY of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Spiking Panthers will be without their prized recruit Dan Andrian Garnica in the last three playdates of the Cesafi beach volleyball tournament.
Panthers head coach Cecil Jotojot told Cebu Daily News that he decided to sit Garnica out for the rest of the season because the release papers from Negros Oriental State University — documents that will allow him to play in the league — haven’t reach the USPF’s registrar as of Thursday afternoon.
The 20-year-old Garnica played one game with USPF but lost to the defending champions University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R), 30-28, 21-16.
At six-feet-and-two inches, Garnica is the tallest player in the league and Jotojot believes that his height would have given them a slight advantage against powerhouse teams like USJ-R, University of the Visayas (UV) and Southwestern University (SWU).
Without Garnica, Jotojot hopes that Jason Reyes and Ryan Naranjo will be able to step up their game as they face UV and the University of Cebu (UC) today, looking to solidify their spot in the knockout semifinals slated Saturday.
“He (Garnica) only played a single game in the eliminations and I don’t see his absence as an excuse for Jason (Reyes) and Ryan (Naranjo) to not play well,” Jotojot said.
USPF is currently fourth in the standings with a 2-2 (win-loss) record, just ahead of Cebu Institute of Technology-University (1-3) and UC (0-4).
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