California Academy faces ‘best of best’
PLAYERS, coaches, and other members of all 18 teams join ACES president Ian Laurel and Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures, Inc. president Vic Gregorio in launching the new season of the 2024 Shakey’s Girls Volleyball Invitational League.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SSL
With its core moving to the collegiate ranks, California Academy is wary as it faces the “best of the best” teams in the 2024 Shakey’s Girls Volleyball Invitational League starting Wednesday.
Star spiker Casiey Dongallo, Jelai Gajero, Kizzie Madriaga and Grace Fernandez may no longer be around, but California coach Obet Vital is confident that other players will step up to continue their winning tradition in this prestigious high school volleyball tourney that will be held at the Adamson University gym and San Andres Gym.
“As for us, we graduated many of our players. We have some new players and then two of our top athletes are moving on to college. They are probably leaving, if ever, by 4 June. So, it’s gonna be a tough battle for us,” said Vital, who also called the shots for University of the East in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).
“This is a very loaded group of teams. Like Casiey said, they have the best of the best in the UAAP and NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association), and the top programs in the rest of the Philippines that are joining this league. So, it’s very tough.”
Aside from California Academy, some of the 18 participating teams are competing in the UAAP like University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines, Far Eastern University, Adamson University and Nazareth School National University.
NCAA teams such as University of Perpetual Help System Dalta, Arellano University, Emilio Aguinaldo College, and Lyceum of the Philippines University are also in the field, assuring slam-bang volleyball battles from start to finish.
Spicing up the tourney will be teams from various provinces in Luzon and the Visayas, including 2023 Palarong Pambansa defending champion Bacolod Tay Tung High School.
“I came here to expose my Palarong Pambansa players. As you can see our players are very young, 17-under so this platform is our stepping stone to the Palarong Pambansa,” Tay Tung coach Ian Macariola said.
Based on the competition format, all the 18 teams were divided into four pools who will play a single-round robin in the preliminaries. They will be narrowed to eight to determine who will be the semifinalists.