After the fall: The San Sebastian Lady
Stags
by rick olivares
The scene was the locker room of
the San Sebastian Lady Stags following their Game Three loss to the Arellano
University Lady Altas. For the third straight season, the jubilation that permeated
their locker room at the FilOil Flying V Centre following their booking a trip
to the championship round had dissipated into what was close to an eerie
silence save for the muted sobbing and unspoken words.
Once more, the Lady Stags came
away from the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Finals empty handed save for individual
awards- star spiker Grethcel Soltones was once more adjudged the league’s Most
Valuable Player. Alyssa Eroa was a repeat Best Libero while Vira Guillema
bagged her first Best Setter Award. However, the awards didn’t amount to much
as the one they dearly coveted eluded them in most cruel fashion.
In the past two years, they earned
themselves a thrice-to-beat advantage in the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Finals.
Two straight years they lost. Last season it was to the College of Saint
Benilde while this loss was to the Lady Altas. A nemesis on and off the court
in more ways than one.
For many Lady Stags, tears
streamed down their faces. Eroa really cried her heart out.
For San Sebastian’s Grethcel
Soltones, she was stunned that it was all over. “It was frustrating,” she
reflected. “Who would have thought it would happen again? “
Only head coach Roger Gorayeb
spoke. No one else.
Late in the match, he railed at
his wards. “I had done everything to push my team to win it. I taught them,
trained them, encouraged them, scolded them. I really wanted them to win not
for me but for themselves. But siguro hindi talaga meant to be.”
After the Game One loss, the Lady
Stags wondered if this was the worst kind of déjà vu. Following the Game two
loss, their body language said everything… it was all over. And though they
fought in the third game, there wasn’t enough.
“It would be one thing to loss to
Benilde all over again had they made it, postulated one Lady Stag. “But to loss
to another team when we’ve been here three years in a row is shocking and
painful.”
Inside the locker room, Gorayeb
wished he could give them a trophy for their efforts. “I do not need another
championship. It would be nice but I am fine. I have won lots of trophies so
much that I can afford to give all of you one each but it would be better if
that trophy you took home was something you won.”
The time for talking about the
game was done. After all it was all over. Instead, the veteran coach said that
he hopes that their inability to win one would not define them and instead help
make them better people.
He spoke of the values of hard
work that so oft mentioned but rarely understood. He spoke of staying together
even years after everyone moved on with their lives. “Reunions are nice,”
intoned Gorayeb. “Years from now, it would be nice to talk about the journey in
winning a championship. But instead we have moments that are funny, sad, and
sometimes, wala lang. But use the lessons learned that you have to push
yourselves to accomplish something. That sometimes, we need to make an even
greater effort.”
As the Lady Stags managed weak
smiles after the goodbyes – Soltones, Denice Lim, and Kate Villegas have all
played their last years – they all filed out into the night. There would be no
send-off dinner.
The San Sebastian volleyball
program, once the proudest if not the most bemedalled, had found itself on hard
times. With almost every team putting up a program with recruitment at an all-time
competitive high, the Recto-based school found it hard to compete. They have
never been a moneyed program. They were just able to get who they wanted and
competed. In the past seven years they have found it hard to really recruit. It
is a testament to their relative strength and the tenacity of their head coach
that they have made the finals in the past three years despite coming up empty
handed.
And now because of the K-12 gap,
they’ll be hard hit next year with no suitable replacements for Soltones, Lim,
and Villegas. “But we’ll just have to grind it out,” promised Gorayeb.
After all the Lady Stags left the
locker room, Soltones stayed behind. She apologized to her coach and surrogate
father about her not being able to give him a championship in her five years
with San Sebastian. She had tasted titles in club volleyball but the one she
dearly craved was to win one for her alma mater.
And one last time, the old coach
parted with his ward with one last bit of advice. “There will be bigger things for
you. Go out and reach for them.”
They shared one more hug and the
door to the locker room closed.
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