Silence Before The Spike

There is nothing like doing a joyride on a weekday afternoon.

A weird class schedule allowed me to leave my day job at ten in the morning and drive wherever the hell I wanted to. Of course the ideal and usual destination is Tagaytay City, but going the usual route seems to be so lame, so I took a longer route… a route that took me to Tanza, Naic, Maragondon, Ternate in Cavite, then Nasugbu in Batangas, then finally to Tagaytay. It was a longer route, sure… but I’ll bet my car that it was a lot faster than a car ride from Alabang to North Edsa on a Friday evening rush hour.

Adding more fun to it is the fact that there was almost NO ONE driving the route that I took. It was a legitimate public road, similar to what is seen on European cross country drives. But really… there was no one driving that route but me! On a 40 kilometer stretch, there was only like 30 vehicles that I came across to. The only time that I saw other vehicles was when I got to a town center where commercial establishments are present. On an evening drive on the same route, it might get really creepy, but on my drive where the sun was so up, it was the smoothest drive of my life.

So what does this have to do with sports?

Nothing, really. I just told the story of a personal adventure that I did in preparation of a REALLY, REALLY loaded November… specially in volleyball.

You see, the last time we saw PSL volleyball was back in July… JULY! We are approaching THREE SOLID MONTHS without PSL volleyball. Let that sink in. If you are solid followers of the Cignal HD Spikers, the Petron Blaze Spikers, and the F2 Logistics Green Archers (yes they are), then I feel you, you are longing for some PSL action.

In addition to the upcoming All-Filipino Conference of the PSL, they’ll be introducing a pocket tournament for collegiate teams called PSL-Collegiate Grand Slam (PSL-CGS). Six teams of a mix of UAAP schools and South Luzon schools will battle for a chance to win an international training camp. An already loaded PSL-AFC with the addition of the CGS? This is volleyball heaven!

But wait… there’s more!

PVL began their third conference a lot earlier, where two UAAP schools are also participating. Once the PSL-AFC and CGS opens, a lot of volleyball enthusiasts can now develop their fantasy matches, fearless forecasts, and predict their UAAP team standings, as seven of eight UAAP schools are participating in these leagues: Adamson and Ateneo in PVL; UP, UST, FEU, and UE in the CGS; and De La Salle in the AFC. Seven schools are now in training camp for the upcoming UAAP Season 81 volleyball tournament.

God knows what would NU be doing while all of these are ongoing. But one thing I know is that I’ll be seeing their juniors squad in the upcoming Rebisco Volleyball League Girls 18-and-Under National Finals that will happen on November 17-23 at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig. The last time I saw them a year ago, they only lost a single set in the entire tournament. My fearless assessment was their juniors team can compete against any seniors team and manage to get a win. Yeah, their core competed in the first conference of the PVL, but that one doesn’t really count.

But… it doesn’t end there…

In case you haven’t heard, Spikers’ Turf is back. If you still find women’s volleyball pretty slow (even though it is really not), watch men’s volleyball. Where the trajectories of the spikes almost reach 90 degrees downward and at speeds of 380 kph (I just made this one up… but they are really fast!) are still diggable (lack of a better term) at best. Best news is that Hyper on Cignal is covering the games… high definition and all! Other news is that I got to call the games on TV, and as of this writing I have a five-setter match under my name in the tournament. Yes Mr. Sev Sarmenta… I will not argue with you the next time you insist that I am a member of the five-setter club.

To sum it up…

PVL started last month, and it’s bound to conclude by November. Spikers’ Turf started a few weeks ago and bound to conclude early December. Rebisco Volleyball League Girls 18-and-Under will happen on November 17-23. And the PSL-AFC and CGS will start on October 30 and will conclude just before Christmas. Three out of four of those leagues, I’ll be calling it either as a court announcer or as a panel. So expect a lot of volleyball entries in this site starting now.

So yeah, the nice drive of the mountain roads of Cavite and the cool breeze of Tagaytay is the silence that I need before I hear the sound of hard volleyball spikes.

And for volleyball fans… Merry Christmas!