CANDON, Ilocos Sur --- Australia spoiled Alyssa Solomon’s impressive debut as Alas Pilipinas suffered a heartbreaking 22-25, 25-23, 25-18, 15-25, 11-15, defeat in Pool A of the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Women’s Volleyball Cup on Sunday at the Candon City Arena here.

Solomon, a late addition to the squad, punched in 23 points but all her efforts went to naught after the Filipinas squandered a 2-1 match lead and wasted a comeback in the deciding frame to fall to a 1-1 win-loss record.

The National University product scored 22 attacks and added one kill block for Alas.

“Still, proud of how we fought. We learned a lot in this game. Hopefully, we can improve since the team has been together for just a couple of weeks. We need to improve for the next games,”  Solomon said.

Alas will try to recover lost ground in the tournament presented by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), FIVB, AVC, Volleyball World and Candon City headed by Mayor Eric Singson when it battles Kyrgyzstan Monday at 3 p.m.

The 6-foot-2 opposite hitter played beautiful music with veteran  and namesake Alyssa Valdez and young middle blocker Nina Ytang in the second and third sets as Alas looked ready to follow up its sweep of Uzbekistan last Saturday.

However, the excitement of the loud partisan crowd turned silent as the youthful Aussies dominated Alas in the fourth set and led by as many as 11. 

Australia carried the momentum into the fifth frame and erected a 6-3 advantage. With Solomon checked at the net by the much taller Aussies, Valdez anchored Alas’ spirited rally and knotted the count at 7 after her back-to-back kills.

Alas shot itself in the foot with consecutive errors followed by an ace by Anni Tang. The host squad trimmed its deficit back to one, only for Australia to ignite a 5-1 run aided by a service error by setter Kyle Negrito for a 14-10 advantage.

Solomon saved a match point but Australia finished the job with a successful block touch challenge on Royse Tubino off an attack by Lara Maric.

Ytang had 13 points on nine kills, three aces and one kill block while Valdez scored all her 11 points from attacks for Alas.

“This is a lesson learned for us and hopefully it will help us in our coming games,” said Alas coach Shaq Delos Santos of the loss. 

“The team is ready. We just need to recover well from this and prepare for our next game.”