EIGHT players were selected to represent Team Cebu City in the Philippine National Games (PNG) IN May 2014.
The eight players are Edmar Bonono, Edward Ybañez, Rommel Pepito, Jade Becaldo, Louijie Tipgos, Relan Taneo, Owen Belen and Jai-jai Verbocidad.
They were identified after the six-leg the Philippine Sports Commission/Cebu City Sports Commission Olympic Development Beach Volleyball tournament which ended last Monday night at the Fort San Pedro Sand court in Plaza Independencia.
“The first in a series of the Olympic qualifying tournaments is finished. There were six very long and grueling tournaments in a single month. The tournaments sometimes last 12 hours each. None of these tournaments were easy and any way, most of the players had never experienced events like this. In many tournaments in the Philippines you may play 3- 5 games in over two or three days. However, in the tournament last Monday some players had to play 15 games in one day,” said PSC beach volleyball consultant Eric LeCain said.
LeCain added that the tournament was divided into two format, the traditional partnered tournaments or King of the Beach format where a player plays with a different partner each match.
“This was to make it fair for players who may or may not have a good partner yet. And also so it would not just become another school versus school match-up but rather a training tournament to increase the level in Cebu,” said LeCain.
LeCain added that one of the great things was how the tournament changed over the month.
Players from different schools tried playing together as a team and even school players would play with out-of-school players. This made the level go up so by the last few tournaments all the teams were playing at a very high level and no one would really know who was going to win,” said LeCain.