Tall Chinese too classy for RP belles

It could’ve been more of a match if it were the RP men’s squad that challenged the Chinese lasses.

China’s Tianjin Bridgestone team, as expected, proved too much for Accel Philippines, hardly taking a sweat in a 25-11, 25-14, 25-17 victory that capped its six-game sweep of the 2006 Hitachi Asian Women’s Club volleyball championship at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum yesterday.

So awesome were the tall Chinese that they spent more time warming up than their clinical disposal of the Filipinas done in 54 minutes - the shortest match in the tourney.

Yin Na, Wang Li, Yang Yanan and Huo Jing pounded the hapless Filipinas with cannon-like kills leading Tianjin Bridgestone to the sweet sweep that duplicated its feat in Vietnam last year.

The Filipinas suffered a fourth straight blowout defeat after a straight-set win over the Indons Wednesday. They try to close out their campaign on a winning note versus Thailand’s Sang Som team today.

The only team which pulled a set against Tianjin Bridgestone, Sang Som, however, is favored against Accel.

"The Philippine team needs to improve on techniques. And if it were to improve, it needs to play a lot of games against good teams outside of the Philippines," said Chinese coach Wang Baoquan.

He also said he’s surprised his chargers were still able to dominate the tourney despite missing the services of four key players left at home with the Chinese national team.

Baoquan added his team was tired coming here, having played no less than 28 games the last two months in club tourneys at home.

Those games, however, seemed to serve the Chinese in good stead as they displayed rapier-sharp performance in all their games in the Asian club event sponsored by Hitachi, Shakey’s Pizza, Accel, D-Load and Hope.

The Philippines put some semblance of a fight against China in the third set with Mary Jean Balse and Cherry Macatangay coming through with some points off an attack.

A drop shot by Balse capped a 5-1 binge that pushed the Filipinas within two points at 14-16. Balse herself, however, threw away their momentum on a service error, sparking a 9-3 Chinese run on the way to the victory.

Earlier, Japan’s Hisamitsu Seiyaku Springs clobbered Indonesia’s Garuda, 25-21, 25-20, 25-22, to jack up its win-loss record to 2-3. The Indons stayed winless in five games.