Two volleybelles from the Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC) turned down offers from other schools and chose to continue playing for the Magis Eagles in the upcoming season.
The two are Danielle Marie Malazarte and Kaye Santos.
The 15-year-old Malazarte is known for her offensive exploits in the Cebu City Youth Festival 2014, where she bagged the Best Attacker plum. She was offered to play for UAAP’s Adamson University and local volleyball powerhouse University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R). She declined both offers.
“My team in Ateneo de Cebu is my number one priority right now,” Malazarte said. “I want to be able to help out as much as I can before I graduate. I’ve been with Ateneo practically all my life and the people there are like family, most especially my team. So it feels weird to just leave them when I haven’t even graduated yet.”
Santos was also lured by the Jaguars to play for their girls team but she turned them down, making her the third Magis Eagle to reject an offer from other schools. Earlier this week, teammate Jennifer delos Santos also chose to stay with Ateneo de Cebu despite an invitation from the University of Perpetual Help System Dalta (UPHSD).
Magis Eagles head coach Mario Sala said that he did not hear much details on the schools recruiting his players until he was interviewed by Cebu Daily News. He remains grateful that his players opted to stay.
“As a coach, it gave me so much pride and motivation to work and research more about developing every student-athlete that parents entrust to us and our volleyball program,” Sala said.
Sala thinks that the education provided by the school is one of the reasons why some of his players chose to stay.
“Beyond all the glory in the sport, our team knows that one of the reasons why they stayed [is because of] the excellent education they’re getting from Ateneo. All of them in the program were intelligent students before they discovered this fascinating game,” Sala said.