Prized coach Ramil de Jesus admitted that it was painful to see his De La Salle University suffer a massive collapse against National University (NU) on the opening day of Season 87 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) women’s volleyball tournament.

The soft-spoken De Jesus, who rarely grants an interview regardless of the outcome of their match, pulled off a shocker when he emerged from the dugout to express his feelings about their heart-crushing 25-23, 25-21, 25-18 setback to the Lady Bulldogs late Sunday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

“I told the team that this is my first time to lose an opening-day game in my 28 years in the UAAP,” said de Jesus, one of the country’s most accomplished mentors with 12 UAAP titles and a bronze medal in the Southeast Asian Games.

“I told them that it’s quite painful since it happened to your batch.”

The last time that the Lady Archers lost a season-opener was in Season 75 in 2012 when the group of Aby Maraño, Michele Gumabao, Ara Galang, Kim Fajardo and Melissa Gohing bowed to University of Santo Tomas of Maika Ortiz,Carmela Tunay and Pam Lastimosa.

Order, however, was restored as the Lady Spikers went on to sweep their next 13 assignments in the elimination round before making short work of NU in the Final Four and beating Alyssa Valdez and Ateneo de Manila University in the best-of-three title series.

Just like what happened 13 years ago, De Jesus said he is not quitting on his team.

“I also have to understand where the players are coming from,” he said.

“It’s tough. We all know that everybody wants to win. In this case, I think NU wanted it more than we did.”

Despite the loss, De Jesus asserted that they will go all out in the remainder of the season, knowing that the most important thing is not how you start, but how you recover to come up with a strong finish.

“This is a wake-up call. Everybody has high expectations on almost all of the teams in this generation, especially on La Salle. They know we can win because we have Shevana Laput and Angel Canino.”

“But the real battle is when you reach the finals — not here in the eliminations. We need to crawl our way to make it to the top two, top four. I think the players will gain confidence from there.”

He added that they should carry all the lessons they gained against an elite team like the Lady Bulldogs as they embark on yet another journey to the UAAP title.

“I told them that nobody loses in a game. You may have lost, but you learned something,” De Jesus added.

“We may have lost today but we’re ready to correct our mistakes in our succeeding matches.”