Alas Pilipinas suffers second defeat against Kazakhstan in Asian Games volleyball – BusinessWorld Online
FOR A WHILE there, Alas Pilipinas looked like a team ready to crash into the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games women’s volleyball quarterfinal party.
But after impressively seizing the opening set against the Kazakhs, the Filipinos had a 360° turn and just completely ran out of gas in absorbing a 27-29, 26-24, 25-23, 25-19 defeat on Thursday that quashed their dream of a breakthrough medal in the quadrennial games.
It was the second defeat for the Nationals, who fell short in scaling the Chinese’s Great Wall following a stinging straight-set defeat on Wednesday.
The setback sent Alas into the classification stage where it could finish anywhere from ninth to 14th.
That last time Alas played in the Asiad was in 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia where it eventually wound up eighth.
There will be no reprise of that in Nagoya.
But there were some moments that the Filipinas, paced by Angel Canino’s energetic 24 points and Alyssa Solomon’s 15 hits, appeared headed that way after rallying from four points down to steal the opening set.
They also trailed by seven in the next two and tried to mount another comeback only to fizzle in the end. — Joey Villar