MANILA – Looking to close out the elimination round of the Pilipinas VisMin Super Cup Visayas leg on a high note, Dumaguete is bringing in a new coach in Leode Garcia.
The league confirmed on Monday that Garcia, also the head coach of the University of San Jose-Recoletos Jaguars in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc., will be replacing Rommel Uka as the Warriors' chief tactician.
Uka left the VisMin Super Cup's ongoing bubble in Alcantara, Cebu due to personal reasons.
"Happy ako kasi hindi ko in-expect na meron biglang nag-hire sa akin as head coach ng isang (I am happy because I did not expect that someone would suddenly hire me as head coach of a certain) team," said Garcia, who cleared a seven-day quarantine earlier in the day and had tested negative for the coronavirus disease 2019 in two swab tests.
Currently in fifth place at 1-5, Dumaguete is looking to rack up wins to build some momentum ahead of the knockout phase.
However, Garcia's VisMin Cup debut will be a baptism of fire as the Warriors will take on no less than the undefeated Talisay Aquastars (8-0) on Tuesday night.
Already assured of an outright semifinal spot, Talisay now looks to lock in the top seed in the playoffs in their 7 p.m. clash with Dumaguete.
Meanwhile, Mandaue aims to zero in on the other Top 2 incentive as they battle Tubigon in the first game at 3 p.m.
Mandaue is eyeing to go back to their winning ways after Talisay snapped their five-game winning streak on Saturday night.
Mandaue, however, would have to do it against Tubigon, which finally broke through the win column also on Saturday following a 35-point explosion from Pari Llagas.
Mandaue coach Jappy Bautista, however, believes that they should look at themselves first before even thinking on how to stop Llagas from repeating his career game.
“We just want to keep on playing our game. Yan ang ginagawa namin (That is what we usually do). Before we focus on our opponents’ mistakes, we want to make sure na tama ginagawa namin (that we execute the plays properly) as a team and the rest will follow along,” Bautista said. “Kasi once tama ang defense namin, susunod na lang ang offense (Because if we make the right defense, the offense will follow) and hopefully this will be our springboard coming off a tough loss.” (PNA)
