A worthy finale to watch in the PSL

I am a converted women’s volleyball fan, and I mean that.

Whereas during my younger days as a sportswriter I used to cover basketball, collegiate, amateur and professional. But in the late 90’s, my interest in the PBA diminished basically because of the Fil-Shams controversy, and I believe and know that there were really PBA players who did not have an ounce of Filipino blood in their veins, but then that is another subject matter altogether.

My piece now is on women’s volleyball, the ongoing finals between defending champion F2 Logistics and Petron, a rematch since the latter lost to F2 last year in another Philippine Super Liga (PSL) finals.

A few years ago, a friend of mine, Alvin Lu, became team manager of Foton and he requested me to conduct team building sessions for the team, the reason why I got to know personally some of the players like Jaja Santiago, Maika Ortiz, Netta Araneta, EJ laure, and even import Lindsay Stalzer who led the team to a championship as she partnered with another import, Katie Messing.

And I used to watch live games in the PSL before until I became busier with other things, like work unfortunately, coupled with the fact that my friend Alvin was replaced as team manager by team owner Rommel whom I also got to know.

Foton revamped the team but failed to duplicate its championship performance. In fact, in the on-going conference, the team was ousted in the semifinals by F2 while Petron took out Cocolife to set up a rematch for the crown between these top two teams.

Unfortunately for me, I could only watch the finals on television and believe me, the best-of-three series between these two teams is a finale worth watching. They are evenly matched, including their imports, Petron with Stalzer who I still cannot understand why Foton let go, and Katherine Bell, while F2 has Venezuelan Olympian MJ Perez and Kennedy Bryan, plus Japanese liberos, Yuri Fukuda for Petron and Minami Yoshioka for F2.

Both teams also have their share of national and veteran players with Mika Reyes, Rhea Dimaculangan, Ces Molina and Aiza Pontillas for Petron, while F2 boasts of Abby Marano, one of the most emotional players on court and maybe the best blocker at her height, and no doubt, the country’s best setter presently, Kim Fajardo and Ara Galang.

The imports play a major role as what happened in Game 1 where Petron fashioned a come from behind win, down in the first two sets, then recovering in the next two to set up a deciding 5th set, and it was Bell who delivered the blows for Petron while Stalzer was her usual steady self throughout the game.

The game featured a lot of rallies, spectacular offensive and defensive plays, but what I like most about women’s volleyball, the players genuinely enjoy playing the game and show their feelings inside the court, one reason why I shifted to volleyball from basketball.

By the time you are reading this, the series may already be over if Petron takes the second game, which will not surprise me at all with momentum on its side, but it will not also surprise me at all if F2 manages to tie the series for a winner-take-all one game championship match. And if this happens, I believe volleyball fans will come in droves to watch.

Women’s volleyball has been on the rise in recent years despite the fact that there are two factions in the commercial league level, at the same time, there is the former NSA, the Philippine Volleyball Federation still questioning the legality of the recognition given by the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) to the Larong Volleyball ng Pilipinas Inc. (LVPI) .

If the swimming community is on its way of unification between the Philippine Swimming Inc. (PSI) of Ral Rosarion and the Philippine Swimming League (PSL) of Susan Papa, it is high time too that this leadership rift in volleyball be addressed once and for all for the sake of volleyball.

But for the meantime, enjoy watching the PSL finals.

I will.