Alas ends Thai reign to say historic SEA Video games seaside volleyball crown

Composed of Sisi Rondina, Bernadeth Pons, Dij Rodriguez, and Sunnie Villapando, the Philippines turns into the one different nation to win the ladies’s seaside volleyball gold medal within the SEA Video games after Thailand received all the final eight titles

PATTAYA, Thailand – Alas Pilipinas claimed a chunk of historical past because it captured the ladies’s seaside volleyball gold medal within the Southeast Asian Video games after dethroning Thailand on the Jomtien Seashore right here on Friday, December 19.

The Sisi Rondina-Bernadeth Pons duo and Dij Rodriguez-Sunnie Villapando tandem received their respective matches within the best-of-three finale, permitting the Philippines to finish the lengthy reign of Thailand, which received all the eight earlier ladies’s seaside volleyball crowns. 

Rondina and Pons set the tone by scoring a 21-17, 21-15 win over Taravadee Naraphornrapat and Worapeerachayakorn Kongphopsarutawadee earlier than Rodriguez and Villapando completed the job with a 21-13, 17-21, 15-6 victory over Tanarattha Udomchavee and Rumpaipruet Numwong. 

“Like I at all times inform them, so long as we’re constant, a podium end will come. We’ve proven consistency and that’s the reason we received the gold,” Rondina stated in Filipino. 

Whereas the Philippines reached the ladies’s seaside volleyball remaining for the primary time, getting the gold medal had nonetheless seemed like an extended shot after it absorbed its solely lack of the round-robin preliminary from Thailand. 

However the quartet defied expectations and surprised the Thais in their very own turf, gifting the Philippines its first SEA Video games volleyball gold because it received the ladies’s indoor volleyball title in 1993. 

“We’d been dreaming of the gold for a very long time. Lastly, the Lord answered our prayers,” stated Rodriguez. 

For Villapando, the golden feat is a results of all of the “ache and heartbreak” the workforce endured within the lead-up to the SEA Video games. 

These hardships toughned up Alas and it confirmed within the remaining.

Villapando and Rodriguez have been dragged right into a deciding set however they bought their act collectively as they raced to a 9-3 lead and bought the job performed.

“We got here out and we executed. We did what we stated we have been going to do six months in the past. I’m so happy with all of us for preventing,” stated Villapando. – Rappler.com