Alas Pilipinas Men falter, stay winless

Alas Pilipinas failed to sustain its strong start, falling victim to Chinese Taipei’s counterattack, 25-21, 20-25, 17-25, 27-29, for a winless run in pool play of the 20th Asian Games men’s volleyball competition on Tuesday at the Park Arena Komaki.

Team captain Bryan Bagunas and Joshua Magalaman led the Philippines’ offense but could only do so much, as costly miscues once again haunted Alas for a third straight game.

The Filipinos dropped all of their games in Pool D and could only hope for much better results in the classification round along with the Taiwanese, who had a 1-2 win-loss card.

Bagunas finished with 17 points on 13 attacks, two aces and two kill blocks, in an all-around performance he spiked with eight excellent receptions and two digs for Alas.

Magalaman scored five of his 16 points on kills and had 11 spikes as Alas finally won a set after getting swept by South Korea and the previous Hangzhou edition runner-up China.

Alas had a chance to force a deciding fifth set after saving four match points and knotting it at 27 after Pei-chang Tsai served out.

But Yu-Sheng Chang finished off the Pinoy spikers with back-to-back kills to end the two-hour, seven-minute match.

Alas committed 26 errors after averaging 25 miscues in its first two outings.

It was all good for Alas in the opening frame, keeping Chinese Taipei at bay with missiles from Bagunas, Leo Ordiales, Marck Espejo and Magalaman while frustrating the opposition’s attackers with solid net defense.

But Alas unraveled in the next two frames as errors piled up, hindering any chance of a comeback.

Ordiales had eight points and Espejo got six markers. Adrian Villados tallied 19 excellent sets while Owa Retamar dished out 18 sets for the Philippines.

Alas and the Taiwanese begin their classification campaign on Thursday.

Yu-Chen Chang fired 24 points, including 21 kills, to lead Chinese Taipei while Yu-Sheng Chang added 19 markers.