Day of mourning for Indonesia

In a volleyball event miles away from home terribly devastated by an earthquake, the Indons had their sad day.

Mourning deaths of thousands of countrymen in East Java, Garuda-Indonesia’s woes were compounded by another rout in the 2006 Hitachi Asian Women’s Club volleyball championship at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum yesterday.

Before the game, Philippine Volleyball Federation officials and the players offered a short prayer for the victims of the quake.

Chung Shan-Chinese Taipei stayed in hot pursuit of the pacesetting Tianjin Bridgestone-China in the seven-nation tourney as it whipped the Garuda-Indonesia, 25-21, 25-17, 25-14.

"We committed several errors at the start but my players stayed cool. We went on to dominate the match after making the necessary adjustments in our game," said Chun Shan coach Lin Kuang Jung through an interpreter.

National player Ching I Lin, Chun Yi Lin and Hui Hsuan Yeh starred for the Taiwanese who took sometime to get their game going in the opening set before going full throttle in the next two sets.

Errors after errors by the Taiwanese had them winning the first set by only four points. Then came their searing attack in the next two sets.

The Indons, thus, suffered another severe beating. Garuda actually has yet to win a single set in the tourney which takes a break today.

Action resumes tomorrow in the same venue with host Accel Philippines facing a tough test against Tianjin Bridgestone-China at 4 p.m. Hisamitsu Seiyaki Springs-Japan plays Garuda in the 2 p.m. opening match while Rahat-Kazakhstan and Sang Som-Thailand clash at 6 p.m.

Chung Shan collected 43 kills as against Garuda’s 25 in the lopsided match that lasted only for 59.

Ching accounted for eight kills, six service points and three blocks with Chun adding nine kills and three blocks and Hui contributing eight kills and two service points.