Alas Girls to prep for 7 months for FIVB Under-17 Worlds

November 16 ------ The Alas Pilipinas Girls have at least seven months to prepare for the 2026 FIVB Volleyball Girls’ U17 World Championship in Chile.

According to the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF), the girls may train overseas while their player pool can also be expanded. The Alas Girls qualified for the U17 worlds after a fifth place finish in the 2nd Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Asian Women’s U16 Volleyball Championship, beating Thailand on Saturday, 25-23, 25-20, 19-25, 25-22, in Amman, Jordan. They became the became the country’s first squad to qualify for a world championship without needing an automatic berth from hosting. “This is big for Philippine volleyball and we’re looking at the future,” said PNVF and AVC president Ramon “Tats” Suzara.

China qualified as defending world champion even before reaching the Final Four of the Amman competition, while the other qualified Asian teams are newly-crowned AVC U16 champion South Korea, runner-up Chinese Taipei and fourth placer Japan. After proving what these girls can do despite the short preparation, Alas U16 coach Edwin Leyva will make the most of the seven-month preparation with the AVC and Suzara supporting their training—including an overseas camp. “This time, hopefully we can prepare better,” Leyva said. “As Mr. Tats Suzara mentioned, we’ll have more time to get ready probably around six to seven months before the tournament in Chile.” “There’s also a possibility that we’ll train abroad so we can learn and adopt the systems used in Japan, Korea or Chinese Taipei,” he added.

Leyva also seeks to add players to his 12-member, history-making squad, led by team captain Xyz Rayco. “Hopefully, we can expand the training pool to make it a bit bigger. That way, we can pull players from the remaining pool when needed. We can’t just keep things the same. We either have to strengthen the lineup or maintain it, depending on the team’s unity and camaraderie,” he said.

The 14-year-old Rayco was a top five scorer in the tournament with a total of 112 points from 92 kills, 14 blocks and six aces. She was also a top six spiker. The opposite spiker from Nasipit believes the best is yet to come for her and the team. “I’m really inspired because I’m still young, yet we’ve already come this far,” Rayco said. “There’s still a higher level ahead of us, and I’m so happy that at my age, I was able to achieve this.”

Source: news.abs-cbn.com