The Philippine Superliga (PSL) All-Filipino Conference is in the books and it had been quite a journey for all teams.

As I’ve said before, winning the title wouldn’t be easy as all teams made sure to prepare. They all worked hard during the off season to raise their level of competition and come up with a fighting chance for the crown.

Heading into the conference, we only had one goal in mind and it was to defend our title.

During the pre-conference press conference, all coaches agreed that their ultimate mission was to “beat Petron and make it to the finals.” Fortunately for them, they were able to achieve their goal while we failed to do ours.

The past conference was really a struggle.

In the first round, we really had a hard time to show the true quality of Petron’s performance.

We had our first loss early via a four-set defeat to F2 Logistics and most of our games were extended to five sets, something that the fans and league sideliners do not often see in our team.

During interviews, reporters kept on asking what’s wrong with the Blaze Spikers and why are we having a hard time putting up a good performance. Actually, it’s really hard to explain and come up with a defense, but it’s all part of being an athlete. Losses are there to keep you on your toes to keep the hunger and fire of victory burning in your heart.

We were able to regain our confidence in the second round as we started to dominate our matches. Although a couple of matches still lasted up to five sets in the crucial phase of the preliminaries, I was just kidding myself that we play a different rhythm with Cignal and Foton as they always give us a hard fight before we could come up with a victory.

Personally, these setbacks were hurting my morale.

There were times that my performance inside the court was very tentative and I always hesitate before making a move. I know it shouldn’t affect my game, but I think my confidence somehow dwindled, especially whenever I start to compare my performance this conference to that of before when were still on top of the league.

The tables have completely turned this conference.

In my opinion, all teams have tremendously improved. For one, Cignal beefed up its roster after getting Alohi Robins-Hardy to run the plays.

Let me share some of my thoughts about her.

As a middle blocker, I really had a hard time competing against her in the semifinals because, aside from being a very good setter, she really controlled the game and dictated the tempo of her teammates.

She cleverly used all her spikers and, unlike other setters whom I played before, her height was an added threat because she can either spike or attack whenever the opportunity arises.

Okay going back, this conference really taught us a lot.

The previous PSL All-Filipino Conference was a humbling experience as it taught us to stand up after every fall.

We realized that dwelling on the past will never be the right path and we have to move forward and accept our fates. After all, these setbacks would make us better persons and give us fresh goals to conquer.

Now that our sorry campaign in the PSL All-Filipino is finally behind us, I’m looking forward to training for the national women’s team. This is going to be another journey and we’re all in this together for the sake of our mother country.

I’m really so excited to be with the team again and to the new challenges and lessons that I will gain.

To be honest, the schedule is quite erratic. Nothing is final at this point since we’re expecting a lot of changes in the coming days.

All I know is we have to be ready once the federation, the Larong Volleyball sa Pilipinas, called us for a meeting to reveal its program. So far, they are planning a training camp in Thailand and a mini-tournament and friendly matches in preparation for the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

I just want to thank the LVPI and our sponsor, Rebisco, for supporting the team and not giving up on us.

Sure, there are a lot of setbacks along the way, but at the end of the day, we just have to move forward, keep our focus and fix our eyes on the ultimate prize — a SEA Games gold medal.