BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Three fights for the girls in blue and white


Some five years ago, Karla Bello, Charo Soriano, and Patty Taganas along with three other former teammates (including Apol Del Puerto, Steph Veluz, and Alexa Pijuan) made a pact to elevate Ateneo women's volleyball to a higher level. They all went to Loyola Heights for various reasons with sports the least of their priorities. Volleyball in high school after all was plain fun. Oh they competed, but they enjoyed the game as a teen only could.

College volleyball was altogether another animal. It was highly competitive they all soon found out and their coach sensed he had a god squad that he rode them hard. Their team clearly wasn't the best, but they were a team of great potential. They beat a much fancied FEU team in five sets in a game that foretold of their promise.

Yet over the years, the team always fell short.

Prior to the start of the season, Bello, Soriano, and Taganas once more decided to come back. It was clearly not the stronger line-up of before, but if everyone elevated their game to a higher level they'd go farther than what most pres-season prognosticators pegged them for. They knew that the team was young and without veteran support they'd make easy pickings for the opposition. And so they played and bucked injuries and inconsistent play to book a seat in the final four.

In the days leading up to their match versus Adamson who positively pulverized them every time out, the three sat of the officials' table prior to one practice to talk about what lay ahead.

The three of them all believed that they could win, but when it came to the others, they weren't sure. it's understandable as they are a college team not a professional one so they all have different priorities. But isn't this why they came back to lead the blue and white to its first every women's volleyball championship?

Somehow someway Ateneo teams are the Peter Parkers of sports -- hounded by bad luck and all. Sadly once more, the women's volleyball team fell and it was over.

Sometimes it seems like it wasn't too long ago when Bello, Soriano, and Taganas were caught up in the hoopla of their male basketball counterparts making the basketball finals for a third straight year while the men's football team was about to embark on their own era of greatness. They were excited and likewise wanted to bring glory to the school.

They may have not won a championship, but they kept their promise to elevate women's volleyball in Ateneo and forever we are grateful.

Thanks Karla, Charo, and Patty! And to Bianca Sison, Steph Gabriel, and Trisha Limgenco as well.

One Big Fight!

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