Antigua explains USJ-R’s slow start in Cesafi

UNIVERSITY of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) women’s team head coach Grace Antigua is hopeful her wards can recover in the ongoing Cesafi women’s volleyball tournament.

The Lady Jaguars, last year’s runners up, sport a 0-2 (win-loss) card after losing to the Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma and the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) on opening weekend.

Antigua, a four-time Southeast Asian Games medalist, admitted her players were quite out of focus during the opening weekend because they were busy with the USJ-R’s departmental examinations last week.

“They lacked sleep because of the departmental examinations,” Antigua said.

Still, the long-time USJ-R coach believes the team can bounce back but it will need a lot of determination and will to be able to achieve that.

“They have a lot to improve. Our blocking needs improvement. Our service and our defense weren’t there,” Antigua said after last Sunday’s loss to USPF.

USJ-R aims to keep its playoff hopes alive this Sunday when it tangles with the unbeaten University of San Carlos (USC), which is coming off a victory against the Cebu Doctors’ University (CDU).

After the USC game, the Lady Jaguars will only have two elimination round games left, which will be against CDU on Sept 24 and the University of Cebu (UC) on Oct. 8.

The top four teams in the women’s division after a single-round robin eliminations will advance to the single-round robin semifinals scheduled in November.