NATIONAL women’s volleyball team suffers a sorry loss to Kashiwa Angel Cross in friendly match.

TOKYO — National women’s volleyball team head coach Shaq De los Santos bared that they need to improve their service reception if they want to make a deep run in the 30th Southeast Asian Games.

The Nationals’ poor performance at the defensive end was very obvious in a friendly match with Kashiwa Angel Cross here, prompting De los Santos to declare that they must address this problem before marching to the prestigious biennial meet from 30 November to 11 December.

“That has been our major concern — our reception. We need to improve our first ball,” said De los Santos, whose wards suffered a 25-18, 23-25, 18-25, 13-25, 12-15 loss to the Angel Cross, a Division 2 team in the Japan V.Premier League here, at the start of their 12-day training camp here sponsored by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC).

In a match held at the Kashiwanoha Community gym in Kashiwa — a two-hour bus ride from the team’s base camp at the Sagamihara — wingers Mylene Paat and Kalei Mau made their presence felt at the offensive end while middle blockers Majoy Baron and Aby Maraño played solid net defense.

The Nationals even led by as many as six in the second set, 7-1, before the Angel Cross mounted a huge rally and took advantage of the visiting side’s unforced errors. Kashiwa overcame a 22-23 deficit with an ace and back-to-back hits to win the set.

“Their speed was very impressive. They move very fluid. They won’t stop until their score on you,” said De los Santos, who is fresh from leading Petron to a silver-medal in the Philippine Superliga Invitational Conference last week.

Everything went downhill for the Filipinas from there as they continued to struggle with their reception followed by a defensive collapse that the Angel Cross pounced on.

“One of our goals was how to handle that kind of situation, especially against a team that has consistent service and good targets,” De los Santos said.

“We need to accept this pointers and challenge ourselves. We need to improve our first ball to have a good attack.”

The Filipinas are scheduled to face Gunma Bank Green Wings on Thursday in Gunma, which is another two-hour bus ride from the team hotel.