by Dave Delgado
Guam - Beach volleyball players David Rillera and Brian Matanane are set to represent Guam at this year's Pacific Games in New Caledonia. The two athletes bring a lot of experience to the table and will look to do better than their bronze medal finish at the 2005 Mini South Pacific Games that were held in Palau.
National team coach Carlo Leon Guerrero said, "We have been practicing hard for the last 6 months, we have been delayed a little bit because of injuries but we are playing catch up right now. Well we are looking forward to facing New Caledonia, Tahiti and Samoa. Usually those are the 3 powerhouse countries at the Pacific Games and we are looking to try and do better than our bronze medal in 2005. They have been playing together for so long they know how each other plays and they have good rhythm so it's really all about conditioning and focusing back on the basic skills."
Rillera has been representing Team Guam since the 1994 Micronesian Games where he was part of the gold medal indoor volleyball team. He continued his run indoors in 1995 and 1997 and then made the switch back to beach volleyball in 2003.
"Brian and I have been playing together for about 5 years, so all in all as far as experience and being a veteran and bronze medal returnee we are looking at getting another medal in New Caledonia," he said. "We have been playing a lot of defense, with Brian's block they would have to go over it or cut around it. So I have been working real hard at getting to those balls with in at least 10 feet or more. Our biggest asset so far is my jump serve so if I can get 100 percent or all the points on jump serves we are going to do really well over there."
Matanane was also a member of Team Guam's indoor team with appearances in 1999, the 2005 MINI SPG'S and in the last Pacific Games. Matanane is confident that the team won't come back empty handed.
He said, "We have a lot of good chemistry together so we know how each other plays and we're comfortable. We are looking forward to playing everybody and one of our bigger competitions in New Caledonia and we are looking forward to playing Fiji and Samoa, all those teams. Fiji and Tahiti those are the two to take down. We are excited to play and compete to see where we're at. We are going to bring back gold, we got out there to win, we go out there to play and we'll come back with something."
