In line with the ongoing University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Women’s Volleyball tournament, this weekly series will analyze the state of the Ateneo Lady Eagles in their journey to reclaim the volleyball crown.

Recap of the week:

THE LADY Eagles earned their first straight-set win against a talented University of the Philippines (UP) Lady Maroons team, 25-20, 25-22, 28-26, on Saturday, February 25 at the FilOil Flying V Centre in San Juan City. However, the Season 79 Finals rematch was disastrous for the Blue and White as they surrendered 16 service aces in their four-set loss to the De La Salle University (DLSU) Lady Archers, 20-25, 17-25, 26-24, 20-25, on Saturday, March 3 at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

Upcoming games

Wednesday, March 7, 4:00 PM vs. Far Eastern University (FEU) Lady Tamaraws (5-2) at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.

Saturday, March 17, 4:00 PM vs. National University (NU) Lady Bulldogs (6-1) at the Filoil Flying V Centre in San Juan City.

1. The impact of losing Dani Ravena

The Lady Eagles were without their rookie revelation, Dani Ravena, at a most inopportune time. The libero’s absence could strongly when comparing the numbers from the UP and DLSU games. Against UP, out of 60 total receptions, 24 were deemed excellent receives. Without Ravena, Ateneo went 25/91 versus DLSU. The Lady Maroons, who are at the bottom with 1.5 aces per set, put up eight aces against the Blue and White. On the other hand, the Lady Archers, the best serving team in the league with 2.55 aces per set, connected on a whopping 16 aces.

According to Volleyball Central, a Twitter page that tracks and predicts UAAP statistics and awards, Ravena is the current leader in the Rookie of the Year race thanks receiving prowess. Before going down, she broke into the top 10 for receiving with a total of 42 excellent receives off 118 attempts. With the loss of their best libero this season, Ateneo put much pressure on the shoulders of fellow rookie Syd Eleazar who made her libero debut against last season’s champions and only recorded one excellent receive while directly conceding three service aces.

As for UAAP Rookie of the Year, Dani Ravena (Ateneo) is leading against Milena Alessandrini (UST) by just 3 points

Dani Ravena – 65.67
Milena Alessandrini – 62.31

— Volleyball Central (@volleycentralph) March 6, 2018

2. Deanna Wong: Making excellent sets from nothing and spreading out the offense

A setter’s greatest challenge can be a bad first ball. She has no choice but to adjust and force up a set from an unfavorable position. A bad first ball compounded by an awkward set can throw an entire offense off rhythm. However, even with her team at the bottom of the league for service reception with an excellent receive percentage of 19.54%, Wong has been able to somehow average 9.86 excellent sets per set in the past two games. This is much higher than her season average so far of 8.37.

In contrast to their difficulties in racking up excellent receives, the team’s blocking has helped Wong out. A rebound from a block allows the Lady Eagles an easy pass to Wong who then has up to four options of attack to choose from. Wong has both Kat Tolentino and Jho Maraguinot as consistent threats from the back row and is tall enough to sneakily drop the ball herself.

Overall, the Lady Eagles have a very spread out offense as Jules Samonte, Team Captain Maddie Madayag, and Bea De Leon are all tied for 20th in scoring with 64 points each for the first round. Particularly, Madayag has a potent running spike n her arsenal, which not only helps to pull away blockers from the other spikers, but also gives Wong more options to pass to.

First round analysis

With the Lady Eagles occupying the fourth spot with a win-loss record of 4-3, let us take a look back at two trends that became evident for the Blue and White throughout the first round.

1. Winning over bottom teams, but losing to top teams

All four of Ateneo’s wins have come against the bottom four teams while all three losses were to the top three teams. Third place DLSU and second place FEU are first and second in serving respectively, so both were able to exploit Ateneo’s poor service reception. Top-seeded NU is the best spiking team, which calls for the Lady Eagles to improve their floor defense in order to excel against them.

It can be seen from Ateneo’s victories that as long as they do not give up too many aces, the Lady Eagles can pull off their game plan and make good use of their talented spikers. In their wins, Ateneo surrendered 2.44 service aces per set while in their losses, the Lady Eagles gave up 3.5 service aces per set. In each of their losses, least one player from the opposing team was able to garner six or more services aces. FEU’s Toni Basa’s with six, NU’s Jasmine Nabor with seven, and DLSU’s Desiree Cheng with seven.

Based on their first round performance, the Lady Eagles will have to shore up their floor defense if they hope to improve their current standing and prove they can contend with the stronger teams in the league.

2. Talented blockers make up for Ateneo’s poor receiving

Many times during the first round, an opposing team would go on a scoring run against the Blue and White when a talented server was behind the line such as La Salle’s 10-0 run with Cheng serving in the third set. The Lady Eagles try to offset this with their stellar blocking and talented servers of their own .

Ateneo currently leads the league in blocking with 2.43 kill blocks per set with Madayag and De Leon at 6th and 7th in the league for blocking. Both average 0.57 blocks per set, but Madayag possesses fewer faults in this category. Wong is also the best blocking setter in the league with eight kill blocks to her name. Apart from blocking, Ateneo is third in serving with 2.00 service aces per set as bannered by Wong and Tolentino who both have 12 aces for the season.

These two factors allow the ball to spend a longer time on the other side of the net, especially when Ateneo is serving for that rally, which negates Ateneo’s weakness in floor defense.

Overall, the glaring lack of good service reception still stares the Lady Eagles in the face. Solving this would further illuminate all the other positives the Blue and White were able to show in the first round. With rookie Dani Ravena out for up to two weeks recovering from Appendicitis, liberos Eleazar, Ria Lo, and Vanessa Baguiwet will need to step up for Ateneo to have any hopes of reclaiming the crown.