Lady Bulldogs get unwired to bond and stay focused on UAAP volleyball bid
Alyssa Solomon (left) fiddling with a Rubik’s cube during a post-game interview with Bella Belen in the UAAP Season 86 women’s volleyball tournament. –LANCE AGCAOILI/INQUIRER.net
Quartered somewhere away from their respective families, it’s not social media that keeps the National University (NU) Lady Bulldogs busy before bedtime.
The Bulldogs have turned to a more conventional way to wile time away: the Rubik’s Cube.
And like on the floor where she dominates, Bella Belen is also a cut above everyone else in solving that puzzle.
“Bella is simply on another level,” star opposite spiker Alyssa Solomon told the Inquirer in Filipino after it was learned that the Bulldogs have steadily built their bond and chemistry using the Rubik’s Cube.
With social media able to mess with the psyche and take focus away from what they want to do in Season 86 of the UAAP women’s volleyball tournament, the NU coaching staff has taken an extra measure to shield its players.
The Lady Bulldogs are made to surrender their phones at night to take them off social media, and relief setter Abe Pono introduced the entire team to the old-school puzzle, which Belen destroys with impunity.
“Solving 3×3, 4×4, and 5×5 cubes no longer challenges me. I can even join tournaments,” said a laughing Belen in Filipino. “[Kidding aside], when you learn the different patterns and have done it a couple of times, it will be easier.”
More than just an evening hobby, Rubik’s Cube helps the Lady Bulldogs build stronger chemistry and stay locked in their goal this season.
“It has been our bonding because we’re asking each other how to solve since we don’t have phones every night so we enjoy our Rubik’s Cubes,” Belen said.
“It helps us have a proper mindset and avoid overthinking our upcoming games. Solving a Rubik’s cube calms us,” added Solomon.
Belen and Co. are determined to win back the UAAP crown they lost to La Salle last year.
Luxury
They topped the elimination round in points and drew the No. 4 team, Far Eastern University, in the Final Four. They have the luxury of watching Nos. 2 and 3 University of Santo Tomas and the Lady Spikers eliminate each other in the other half of the semifinals.
National takes on Far Eastern in the first half of the Final Four on Saturday at Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay, with the Bulldogs determined to not give the Lady Tams a chance of taking their series to a deciding second game.
They have basically done everything they want this season—make the playoffs, do so as the No. 1 team, etc. And if they do dispatch of the Lady Tams in one game like they said they would, then the Rubik’s Cube could be a bonding tool for the other teams to use in the future, too.
