Cebuana Deanna Wong (3) and the rest of the Ateneo Lady Eagles celebrate a point in a game against FEU in the UAAP women’s volleyball tournament last Sunday at the Filoil Flying V Arena / INQUIRER
Cebuana Deanna Wong confident Ateneo can recover from opening-day loss to FEU
The Ateneo Lady Eagles cracked under pressure against Far Eastern University (FEU) in their first game in the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tournament last Sunday, but Cebuana setter Deanna Wong believes there’s nothing alarming about that.
The Lady Eagles started their first outing strong but then failed to hold on, losing to the Lady Tamaraws, 25-19, 21-25, 25-18, 20-25, 9-15, at the Filoil Flying V Arena.
Ateneo actually held a 6-1 lead in the deciding set but still lost after committing crucial errors down the stretch.
But the 19-year-old Wong, the former University of San Jose-Recoletos setter who is playing a bigger role this season with the Lady Eagles because of the departure of former UAAP best setter Jia Morado, believes it’s too early to panic.
She did admit, though, that nerves got in the way in the team’s first game of the season.
“Yeah of course [we felt the jitters]. It was our first game, and we are a new team so I guess it was normal for us to feel nervous. So when FEU made a run, we felt nervous but we kept our composure,” said Wong. “We still kept going at it. Errors were just really going our way.”
Wong had a stellar outing, setting up her teammates well and keeping her composure all throughout the game. Her teammates Maddie Madayag, Bea de Leon and Jho Maraguinot carried the team’s offense, but Ateneo fell into a maze of errors in the fourth and fifth sets, which led to the loss.
The 5-foot-8 Cebuana said the team will work on their shortcomings in time for their game against National University (NU) today.
“For me, I really tried my best to set the ball, but I know there’s a lot more to be improved on. What we need is communication in the court and teamwork,” she said.
Ball reception is something Ateneo can improve on.
“We know that kulang kami sa receive so that’s what we’ll work on. Coach Tai has been telling us to learn from our mistakes, and I think that we can do it and that’s what we’ll do,” said Wong. “It was still our first game. We have to move on to the next game against NU and we’ll do better.”
The game between NU (1-0) and Ateneo (0-1) is set at 4 p.m. still at the Filoil Flying V Arena.
In the earlier game at 2 p.m., the University of Santo Tomas (0-1) takes on the University of the East (0-1).
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
