The Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) is shoring up the Alas Pilipinas Girls squad that is headed for a historic debut on the world stage next year.

An inter-secondary tournament is scheduled to be held in February to identify additional talents that will strengthen the Alas Girls roster for the FIVB Volleyball Girls’ Under-17 World Championship in Chile on 5 to 15 August.

The world No. 25-ranked squad wrote history after qualifying in the second staging of the prestigious age-group tournament following a fifth-place finish in the 2nd AVC Asian Women’s U16 Volleyball Championship last November in Amman, Jordan.

Although all 12 original players of the Edwin Leyva-coached Alas Girls –- the Alas program’s youngest team -- are age-eligible for the tournament, the new PNVF leadership wants to form a more competitive pool.

“Okay. About the Under-17 team that qualified through the Under-16 tournament for the FIVB World, it’s not automatic that we’ll send the same team. We can still make some changes,” PNVF president Tony Boy Liao said.

“So, we will call for tryouts for that team. We’ll make that team stronger since it’s the World (Championship), not Asian. It’s a world event. So, we’ll have a tryout.”

The talent-identification program will be conducted through a nationwide tournament slated to run from February to May.    

“Actually, what we’re planning to do now is we will have our inter-secondary from February to May. So, these are the players that would qualify for the under-17 team,” Liao explained.

“So, after that tournament, we’ll call for tryouts or at least directly select players that will be included in the team.”

Alas Girls will undergo an intensive three-month training once the team roster is finalized.

“Then maybe they’ll have two and a half or three months training for the under-17 FIVB Championship.”

Alas Girls qualified for the last of the four Asian slots for the World Championship with China earning an outright berth as reigning titlists.  

Other teams from the continent which punched tickets to Santiago are South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Japan.

A total of 24 national teams will compete in the tournament.