A HISTORIC bronze medal, two individual awards and the Alas Pilipinas men’s team is off to a strong start in a year-long preparation for the country’s solo hosting of the prestigious FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship next year.

Alas Pilipinas braved on with a crippled crew to clinch a first bronze medal in the Men’s Southeast Asia V. League first leg over the weekend with a squad of heroes rising to the occasion.

Sans injured Bryan Bagunas and Marck Espejo, Alas leaned on Kim Malabunga and Buds Buddin to take them to a podium finish and in return reap the fruits of their labor.

Malabunga was hailed as the Second Best Middle Blocker while the young Buddin, a National University varsity, earned the Second Best Outside Spiker honor.

But more than that, their gallant stand to history after a pair of fourth-place finishes gave Italian head coach Angiolino Frigoni a stepping stone in his debut tournament for the Philippines.

“It’s a bronze medal. It’s better to start with a bronze medal than start without a medal,” said the grizzled coach with stints in the Olympics in his pocket with the Italy women’s team. “But for me, we are just starting, we only played in this competition this year.”

Frigoni took over only last month and produced results right off the serve for the Philippine National Volleyball Federation (PNVF) led by president Ramon “Tats” Suzara.

And it doesn’t end there.

If anything, winning the bronze in the Southeast Asian level is just the beginning for an overall goal of molding the Filipino spikers to ready warriors against world superpowers a year from now.

“I am not thinking of the bronze, I am thinking on how to improve this team. To play in the next competition better together and with a better goal,” he said. “We’re still not on that level. We have to improve not just our skills, but also our mentality. We need experience. We need time. We need more matches.”

Meanwhile, Kissada Nilsawai was named the Most Valuable Player of the first leg as Thailand wiped out the opposition with a perfect campaign without yielding a set yielded in three matches entering the second leg in Indonesia, the winner of the inaugural edition last year.

Hendra Kurniawan (First Best Middle Blocker) and Dio Zulfikri (Best Setter) of silver medalist Indonesia, Thailand’s Napadet Bhinijdee (First Best Outside Spiker) and Tanapat Charoensuk (Best Libero) as well as Vietnam’s Pham Van Hiep (Best Opposite Spiker) completed the mythical team.