Indons, Taiwanese gain volley berths

Cebu — Host Philippines got an early feel of things to come in the Southeast Asian Games as it fell to reigning regional champion Indonesia, 25-15, 25-20, 25-20, yesterday and all but lost any hope they had in the FIVB World Championship at the University of San Carlos Gym here.

Muhammad Zainudin, a 6-4 spiker from Yuso club back home, hammered the Nationals with 16 hits including 10 on kills and four on blocks as the Indonesians clinched a second straight victory and a berth in the next round of this quadrennial meet.

I Nyoman Rudi Tirtana also provided some of the ammunition with 11 points — eight on attacks and three on blocks — while utility spikers Rizqon Aris Achmad and Joni Sugiyatno added eight apiece as the 2003 Hanoi SEAG gold medalist braced itself for an interesting duel with heavy favorite Chinese Taipei at 2 p.m. today.

The Taiwanese also notched a second straight triumph with a 25-17, 25-10, 25-17 demolition of the Macau Chinese earlier to seal the other berth in the five-day event.

backed by the PSC, Cebu Visitors and Convention Bureau, Sogo Hotel, Air Philippines, Bacchus Energy Drink and WG&A.

The winner of the showdown between Indonesia and Chinese Taipei, ranked by FIVB at 36th, will be grouped with Korea and Kazakhstan while the loser gets a slot in the other group composed of China and India.

"We committed a lot of service errors, maybe the crowd bothered us a little bit," said Indonesian skipper Erwin Rusni, a member of the team that beat the Taiwanese in the 1999 Asian Championship in Teheran, Iran.

Power-hitting Dante Alinsunurin paced the locals with 12 hits but the host squad, formed only last January, just didn’t have enough power to offset Indonesia’s superb attacking game.

"This is good learning experience for us," said RP team coach Sergio "Vip" Isada, who is using this event as build-up to the biennial meet slated in the country from Nov. 27 to Dec. 5.

"Kulang pa kami sa familiarity at cohesion pero give us enough time and we’ll be a different team come the SEA Games, beatable naman ang Indonesia," said RP captain Ariel dela Cruz, a national team mainstay since 1992.

RP seeks to close its campaign decently as it clashes with Tonga, winless in three matches, at 4 p.m.

Egged on by some 5,000 crowd, the Filipinos started out well by seizing a 5-3 lead early in the opening set but the Indonesians unloaded a murderous streak as the latter pounded the former with crisp kills to handily take a set to nothing lead.

Tightening its defense at the net, RP took control of the early part of the second set as Herminio Gallo, Jr. launched a massive spiking spree for a 17-15 upperhand, delighting the Cebuano crowd — mostly students of the host school, University of Cebu, University of Visayas and University of San Jose de Recoletos.

That celebration was temporary though as the tall and long-limbed troika of Tirtana, Zainudin and Brian Alfianto sealed the front with their rock-solid net defense that saw the Indonesians taking 10 of the set’s last 13 points.

A set away from elimination, RP made a gallant stand in the final set as Indonesia fell into a maze of errors — mostly service errors — to knot the count at 15-all but the end result was same.