Shaq de los Santos is now looking ahead to HD Spikers' strong start with Signal's first loss in the current Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino Conference, a stunning straight-set loss to Choco Mucho. You can make fun of the fact that you stopped.
„If you're shocked, we're shocked too,“ Delos Santos said after Cignal got back on track with a 25-7, 25-16, 25-16 win over Strong Group on Tuesday. I told a joke in Filipino.
„But all jokes aside… that loss is where we all started, especially myself. To be honest, I'm really disappointed that we couldn't execute the (match) plan properly,“ he added.
The Flying Titans did everything they wanted in that game after limiting all of the HD Spikers' attackers to single digits and giving power to Cici Rondina and Kat Tolentino en route to leading Choco Mucho to a sweep. I did.
„We had some problems on offense and our percentages were bad, but we fully accepted that,“ he said. “We needed to push harder to improve our offense.”
Vannie Gandler and Seth Molina did just that and produced much better results, finishing with 16 and 14 points, respectively, to get the Signals back on winning ways.
„We realized that we were still lacking in practice and preparation…It was a wake-up call for us,“ said Delos Santos. “We will strive for that.”
Choco Mucho played much better than the defending conference bronze medalist in every aspect except reception, and despite the signals he stood on the court thinking he had the means to stop the Flying Titans on their course. That was also evident on the stat sheet.
lessons learned
But Delos Santos knows he can glean something good from that disappointing loss.
„We had a good game plan, but we are looking on the (bright) side. If we want to learn, the loss in that game was given to us and we will learn more. From there, we thought about what we could do (better),” he said.
Even though setter Ger Cayuna was the only silver lining in that loss, she learned a valuable lesson as she and Delos Santos focused on their playmaking to solve the problem.
“The first thing I learned was to be courageous on the court, because when someone gets lost on the team, other players follow and you need someone to fill that gap,” Kayuna said. said. “We cannot push each other down, rather we need to lift each other up.”
“Our days after that game have not been easy and especially Angel (Cayuna) knows that. Every day of training, the fatigue, we endured all that, but we are seeing good results. I will never quit,” said Delos Santos.
The Signals had their sights set on this conference goal from the moment they won their first game. And even after that disappointment, that goal hasn't changed for the HD Spikers.
„We need to help and get to know each other more in order to cover what others need. We just need to help each other. We will not stop until we achieve our goals,“ he added. Ta. INQ