Alas fights for pride, life vs Taiwanese

CANDON CITY, Ilocos Sur, Philippines —  It boils down to this game.

It’s the one that would decide if Alas Pilipinas would advance to the AVC Women’s Volleyball Cup semifinals or not.

For that to happen, the Filipinas must beat the Taiwanese today at the Candon City Arena and for the latter to lose to the South Koreans tomorrow.

But the Chinese Taipei showdown comes first. It’s set at 3 p.m.

“We need to keep on fighting and learning whatever happens,” said Alas interim coach Shaq delos Santos, whose team was formed just two weeks before this nine-day continental meet.

The Nationals were pushed to the brink after falling to the heavily favored Koreans, 25-16, 25-18, 25-22, Tuesday, their second defeat against the same number of wins.

The loss pushed the host down to third in its bracket, behind South Korea and Chinese Taipei, who are both unscathed in three outings.

Despite the loss to South Korea, hoping to reclaim its Volleyball Nations League spot after being relegated last year, Delos Santos found a silver lining.

“They played more solid and we couldn’t totally keep up with them until the end,” he said. “Our lack of time to prepare showed but we can see that we fought.”

Alas, indeed, showed some fight especially in the third set when it took a 19-16 advantage only to let it slip away in the end.

And that is the performance Delos Santos wants to see versus Chinese Taipei.

“There’s a lot of things we need to do. I hope we can adjust in our next game,” he said.