Mid-season pep talk fueled Foton to title

MANILA, Philippines - Foton’s soar to the Philippine Superliga (PSL) Grand Prix women’s volleyball throne didn’t just take off during the off-season or the best-of-three finals series against two-time champion Petron.

It was sparked by a simple pep talk.

Foton team manager Alvin Lu bared that the Tornadoes were in the middle of a three-game slump in the first round when he decided to gather them for an open forum to get their respective inputs as well as lay down all the expectations of the management.

“Things were not going right in the first round when I decided to give them a pep talk,” said Lu, who had to fly in from China just to catch the Tornadoes’ crown-clinching conquest of the Blaze Spikers, 25-18, 25-18, 25-17, before a big crowd Saturday at the Cuneta Astrodome.

“The team responded perfectly well to our discussion. They committed themselves to a common goal and vowed to work hard as one unit in our next games. We were an entirely different team in the second round as we went on to win five straight games to make it to the semis.”

But the victory didn’t come easy for the Tornadoes.

In fact, they went through the wringer before escaping with a nail-biting 25-18, 26-24, 18-25, 20-25, 15-8 victory over top-seeded Philips Gold Lady Slammers to book a dream finals duel with the fancied, star-studded Blaze Spikers.

But Foton surprised Petron in the series’ opener, 14-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-22, but failed to sustain its charge, enabling the Blaze Spikers to strike back with a 25-13, 25-21, 23-25, 24-26 victory to force a sudden death.

And the Tornadoes didn’t only surprise the Blaze Spikers the way they did in Game One. They dominated them.

“I never doubted the team,” said Foton coach Villet Ponce-de Leon. “I told them that if we have to triple our effort for Game 3, we will gladly do it. We’re already here. There’s no backing down. We’re all eager and hungry to win the crown.”

With American imports Lindsay Stalzer and Katie Messing as well as prized middle blocker Jaja Santiago finding their groove early, the Tornadoes stormed through the first two sets.

In the third, it was an all-Foton show as it rolled to a 13-7 lead en route to victory.

“We want a fairy-tale ending and we finally finished it today,” Ponce-de Leon said. “We were made to believe in fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White when we were growing up and today, we validated that fairy tales do come true. Our journey from the bottom to the top is one for the books.”