THE professional and collegiate sports leagues—not to mention national squads—grab all the attention of our sports-crazy republic, but high-school and even grassroots competition has been growing in popularity, as well.
There are several competitions that take center stage this month of November (and beyond). First, there’s the Rebisco Volleyball League, which is all about girls volleyball, and the Cherifer Tangkad Sagad Basketball Tournament of the Smart Breakdown Basketball Invitationals (BBI).
The Rebisco Volleyball League, the erstwhile Shakey’s Girls’ Volleyball League, will be played from November 20 to 26 at the Santa Rosa Multipurpose Complex in Laguna. Twelve under-18 high-schools squads with three each coming from Luzon, the Visayas, Mindanao and the National Capital Region (NCR) are grouped into two divisions and will battle for five days, after which the semifinals and finals will be played on Saturday (November 25) and Sunday (November 26).
The Luzon squads are De La Salle Lipa, Holy Rosary College of Santa Rosa, Laguna, and Angeles city’s Holy Family Academy. From the Visayas, there’s Bacolod Tay Tung High School, Cebu’s University of San Jose Recoletos, and Tacloban’s Leyte National High School. The Mindanao contingent enlists Cagayan de Oro’s Angelicum Learning Center, Koronodal National Comprehensive High School and the University of Mindanao-Tagum.
Representing the NCR are Nazareth School of National University, Hope Christian High School and Far Eastern University-Diliman.
It is good to know that Rebisco picked up the baton from Shakey’s that dropped their longtime sponsorship of the league and the sport. It was kind of surprising given the high profile of the sport in the past eight years. Rebisco first got its feet wet in the volleyball scene with its sponsorship of the Ateneo Women’s Volleyball Team. Since then, they put up the Creamline Cool Smashers in the Premier Volleyball League and backed up the national team to the Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championship and the Asian Women’s Volleyball Club Championship. They were also behind the Battle of Rivals match that was played a few months ago.
The BBI, in the meantime, is on its fourth year of operating elementary and high-school basketball with some 50 squads all over Metro Manila participating. The BBI has three tournaments year-round with various age group competition. They have also engaged some of the regional teams to participate in what is hoped will be a huge national tourney. From what I know, there will be Davao, Iloilo and a few other squads from the provinces who will be participating in a “national age group finals.”
And to show how this league is really beefing up, they will begin to make their first livestream broadcasts soon.
The Smart Breakdown Basketball Invitationals have also applied for membership to the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas.
Also ongoing in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines juniors tourney where squads from Ateneo, National University, Far Eastern University and University of Santo Tomas are favored to compete for the crown.
And in a few weeks’ time, the 11th season of the SM-National Basketball Training Center (NBTC) will tip off. The SM-NBTC league is a nationwide tourney of the top high-school teams from all over the country (no age groups here) that compete for a few months in a United States National Collegiate Athletic Association-style tourney, with the winners of each of the regions around the country coming to Manila for the title of the best high-school team in the land (with a few guest foreign squads taking part).
It’s a good time to get into high-school sports.