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MANILA, Philippines – UAAP women’s volleyball has seen a resurgence of stars at the turn of the pandemic — a timely changing of the guard just as the league lost its last batch of icons like Sisi Rondina, Eya Laure, Kat Tolentino, Tots Carlos, and many others due to a two-year suspension of play.
Somehow, either through sheer coincidence, great recruitment, or a healthy mix of both, the UAAP continues to bear witness to a new budding superstar year after year, with these young standouts quickly earning the lofty unofficial title of “super rookies.”
Though not an official entry in the thick volumes of sports jargon, the label “super rookie” has usually been given to exceptional first-year players who immediately take over as leaders of their teams and stay consistent in that role for the rest of their inaugural campaigns.
In honor of Women’s Month, Rappler looks at these phenomenal athletes, now all central figures for the future of Philippine volleyball due to their historic performances and potential.
Bella Belen
With the UAAP women’s volleyball landscape in some sort of reset in 2022 due to the aforementioned two-year pandemic hiatus, NU exploded onto the scene as the hot new contender with its homegrown crew of high school stars, bannered by the captivating Bella Belen.
Led by the player once benched in high school behind the likes of Ivy Lacsina and Faith Nisperos, the Lady Bulldogs waxed untouchable for the entirety of Season 84, only dropping six sets the entire campaign and completing a stunning 16-0 season sweep for the program’s first title in 65 years.
Even more historic was Belen’s individual exploits for the season, as she finished as the league’s first known rookie-MVP in history to kickstart a super rookie movement that endures to this day.
Four years in, Belen remains the blueprint for what a college volleyball superstar should be, a player developed from the ground up — grassroots to greatness — with virtually no weaknesses to speak of in offense or defense.
Now in her final UAAP campaign in Season 87, Belen is a two-time UAAP MVP and champion with a real chance to shoot for a double award trifecta before all is said and done.
Angel Canino
Just as fans thought Bella Belen was a one-of-one, a statistical anomaly who will not be matched for years to come, Angel Canino barged into the scene in 2023 as the shining bright hope of the mighty La Salle Lady Spikers program under legendary coach Ramil de Jesus.
In virtually no time, the pride of Bacolod became La Salle’s go-to weapon in its Season 85 redemption campaign after a runner-up finish the year prior to Belen-led NU, creating a captivating super rookie versus super rookie narrative that got fans glued to screens and arena seats whenever the two met.
The script practically wrote itself as Canino became only the second rookie-MVP in modern UAAP history immediately after Belen claimed the distinction.
The two future Alas Pilipinas national team prospects capped off their quickly-brewed rivalry in an enthralling Season 85 finals series, where Canino’s La Salle needed two straight five-set games to fend off Belen’s NU side and win the Lady Spikers’ 12th overall women’s volleyball championship.
Playing in her third year after an injury-plagued Season 86, Canino now captains a resilient La Salle squad that remains firmly entrenched in title contender conversations despite falling to a 19-year-worst start to begin its 2025 campaign.
Angge Poyos and Casiey Dongallo
From a long shot to even longer odds, UAAP Season 86 brought in not one, but two new super rookies in UST’s Angge Poyos and UE’s Casiey Dongallo.
Coming off as unassuming and soft-spoken at first glance, Poyos quickly established herself as the Golden Tigresses’ newest, yet most lethal option, going about her business with nothing more than occassional smiles intertwined in her attacking barrages.
Though a handful of minor injuries mildly set back what was otherwise another statistical marvel of a rookie season, Poyos still successfully led UST back to its first women’s volleyball finals since the Laure-Rondina Tigresses of 2019 and was in MVP talks before Belen captured her second individual crown.
Sheer talent, however, proved insufficient for young UST as Poyos’ squad bowed to a more experienced NU side on the way to the Lady Bulldogs’ second title conquest in three years.
Brimming with desire for redemption, Poyos and the Golden Tigresses are right back at it in Season 87, rising as clear title favorites alongside Belen’s NU and Canino’s La Salle.
Dongallo, meanwhile, carved her name into history books from the path least taken with the UE Lady Warriors.
Unlike NU, La Salle, and UST — programs which all boasted winning cultures even before they got a taste of the super rookie action — UE was a perennial cellar-dweller until it landed a culture-changing California Academy high school group with Dongallo at its core.
Given practically free reign with no pressure of expectations to live up to, Dongallo lifted the Lady Warriors from the doldrums and helped notch three wins in a 14-game run in Season 86.
To put things in perspective, those three wins, while measly on their own, represented a new world of hope for a lowly UE program that only earned nine victories against a whopping 119 losses in the last 10 years leading up to Dongallo’s arrival.
Though Dongallo’s run with UE came to an abrupt halt after just one season, the underdog tale continues with her transfer to the UP Fighting Maroons, another hard-luck program that not come close to a women’s volleyball championship since its last brush with gold in 1986.
Shaina Nitura
The law of averages demand that the super rookie streak should eventually come to an end, but the current UAAP season will still be spared from that eventuality, all thanks to the stratospheric rise of Shaina Nitura for the Adamson Lady Falcons.
A bespectacled spectacle the moment she first set foot in the collegiate scene, the homegrown Adamson high school star wasted no time joining the super rookie conversation, dropping a UAAP rookie and then-Adamson school record 33 points in her first game of the season against Ateneo.
Just six games later, Nitura somehow pushed the envelope further, as she shattered the all-time UAAP women’s volleyball scoring record with a 38-point bomb against UP, three points more than the previous high-water mark set by league legends Alyssa Valdez of Ateneo and Sisi Rondina of UST.
The uphill climb, however, continues for the rebuilding Adamson program, as it rides a four-game losing streak as of publishing despite the historic, herculean efforts from the Lady Falcons’ 20-year-old captain.
Amid the team’s early struggles, a silver lining is there is nowhere to go but up for Nitura, who was named the most promising 2020s super rookie so far in separate interviews with Belen, Canino, and Poyos.
Future never been brighter
Four years. Five super rookies.
Even in an era that produced the likes of Alyssa Valdez, Jia Morado, Aiza Maizo, Ara Galang, Jaja Santiago, and many other would-be superstars, it was unheard of in the women’s division that a first-year player would come in, take over, and produce at an MVP-caliber level.
The phrase “the future has never been brighter” gets thrown around quite often, but there is no better time to use it than today, while it still truly applies.
A world of opportunities await this marvelous quintet outside of college, but for now, UAAP and volleyball fans should savor every moment with these super rookies while they can, because no one can ever know when a sustained lineage of stars like these will ever come again. – Rappler.com
