Battling a world-class champion like China in the 2018 Asian Games quarterfinal was an incredibly tough but absolutely necessary learning experience for the Philippine women's volleyball team.
The Philippines suffered a beating at the hands of the reigning Olympic gold medalists. The team struggled to break down the Chinese's formidable defense, bowing out of the tournament after a quick 25-15, 25-9, 25-7 loss.
"For us, competing against an Olympic champion is a really good experience, and hopefully, we can draw inspiration from this," national coach Shaq delos Santos said after the match.
The Filipinos relied heavily on Jaja Santiago, who delivered ten of her 16 points in the opening frame alone, to come up with a decent 15-point output in Set 1. But China built insurmountable leads in the second and third periods, with majority of the Philippines' markers coming from opponent errors.
Delos Santos tried to calm his troops down by burning early timeouts, where he reminded the players to keep on adjusting and learning from their dominant foes' impressive execution.
"I told the players not to feel down. We just need to maximize our learnings every time we play and include this experience in the team's process," the coach said.
The players themselves considered it an honor and privilege to play opposite the Olympic queens, who have yet to drop a single set in the ongoing competition. The tough loss just encouraged the Filipino spikers to further hone their craft, so that one day, the Philippine team may attain what the Chinese have built through the years.
"We are fortunate to experience this kind of challenge, we tried and never surrendered," skipper Aby Maraño wrote in an Instagram post. "It's still a long journey for Philippine volleyball. For now, we were able to see where we are. We just need to be patient."
"I think what we learned here from today's game is that we still have a long way to go," echoed Alyssa Valdez. "That's not a negative outcome or output for the team. It's actually a positive because now we're more motivated to improve and work diligently in our trainings."
Santiago, for her part, remains optimistic that with a sustainable program and proper support, the Philippine team will soon reach the same level as the regional powerhouse squads.
"It's normal that we experience these losses, and maybe China also started this way," she said. "Why not? Maybe in two or three years, if this continues, maybe we can be on the same level as our opponents here in the Asian Games and the SEA Games. Let's just take our time, we'll win eventually."
In the meantime, the Philippines still has a chance to finish strong in the Asiad. After getting booted out of contention, the team will now gear up for two more games in the classification phase, which begins on Friday against Kazakhstan.
"One of the goals of the team is really to have a high classification ending in the Asian Games," said Valdez. "We're going to prepare well for Kazakhstan. We're going to put our hearts out there."