Women’s basketball and men’s volleyball will get their due recognition as the Collegiate Press Corps has decided to start handing out weekly awards to outstanding players from the two divisions starting this season.
The collegial body made up of scribes covering the University Athletic Association of the Philippines and the National Collegiate Athletic Association have unanimously agreed to extend the honors to these two sports as a way to further contribute to their ascent.
“With collegiate sports going back to its normalcy, it’s also imperative for the Collegiate Press Corps to expand our reach to the other athletes and what better way to do that than extending our Player of the Week citations to women’s basketball and men’s volleyball, on top of the traditional men’s basketball and women’s volleyball honorees,” the group said in a statement.
The Collegiate Press Corps will also hand out Collegiate Women’s Basketball Player of the Year and Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Player of the Year awards at its annual Collegiate Awards come May 2024.
In the past, women’s basketball athletes were already feted starting in 2018 when National University’s Afril Bernardino was given the Award of Excellence.
Since then, five more players were named as Players of the Week, namely Ria Nabalan (National University) in UAAP Season 81, Pat Pesquera (University of the Philippines) and Mar Prado (Adamson University) in UAAP Season 82, and Kacey dela Rosa (Ateneo de Manila University) and Bettina Binaohan (De La Salle University) last UAAP Season 85.
Meanwhile, Josh Ybanez (University of Santo Tomas) and Joshua Retamar (NU) were hailed with the same honors last season for their invaluable performances as they blazed the trail in the men’s volleyball side.
