Cignal, with everyone having each other’s backs, takes early semifinal lead
Erika Santos and Vanie Gandler have a pact—and it’s keeping Cignal’s title bid humming.
“We’ve been telling each other that we will cover for one another because we can’t afford to be the ones missing in action for the team,” Santos said.
Behind that pact, the Super Spikers have taken the early lead in the PVL All-Filipino Conference semifinals following a 23-25, 25-14, 25-11, 25-12 victory over upstart Farm Fresh on Saturday at the Mall of Asia Arena.
Santos unleashed 21 points in the victory and Gandler provided support with 18.
“I feel motivated because I can see she trusts me, so I make sure to give that trust back to her, too,” Santos said after collecting 20 kills and one block.
And they don’t have each other’s backs just on offense. They also act as leaders of a Cignal squad that has always been on the same page.
“I think we all just play very selflessly. Nobody wants to be the star. We just try to cover for each other, whatever that way is,” said Gandler.
“If Erika is doing better in offense this day, I will try to do my best to have good first balls. If she’s struggling, I try to step up also. But it’s not just me, the whole team plays very selflessly.”
Gel Cayuna, for one, holds the offense together. Against Farm Fresh, she tallied 16 excellent sets and mixed that up with five points. Tin Tiamzon provides stability as the other outside hitter. Dawn Catindig leads a persistent floor coverage, behind a frontline featuring Rose Doria-Aquino and Jackie Acuña.
“I think it’s that support system we have with one another. We allow each other to make errors, we allow each other to have the time to recover,” Gandler said.
That trait has carried Cignal this conference, despite a quiet offseason where other teams made huge splashes with marquee acquisitions. And look where the team is now: Cignal is the only team still standing that has beaten the three other semifinalists in the preliminary round, where it finished as the second seed behind a 6-3 (win-loss) card.
It’s a strong statement for a team that doesn’t have the kind of big names the rest of the field has.
“Cignal’s different in a way that our core changed a bit. Our key players left and now we added some more key players, so we needed a bit of time to learn how to play together,” Gandler, an Alas Pilipinas standout, said. “But when it comes to the heart, it’s the accumulation of heartbreaks that we had before.”
Creamline next
Cignal plays Creamline for the third time this conference when they clash on Tuesday, also at the Mall of Asia Arena and will wrap up the semifinal round against PLDT on Thursday next week at the Filoil Centre in San Juan City.
“It’s [a lot of pressure], of course, one [miss], you die,” said Gandler. “We don’t really focus on the result, we focus on what we need to do now—if it’s training, the game, each point, each set—then recover after. We just try to do everything we can do to prepare well and not really give ourselves that much pressure on the outcome of the game.”
Farm Fresh drew first blood in the match as Cignal tried to shake off the effects of a 15-day break.
“For me, the first set was winnable. Instead of panicking, like what Vanie said, we just gathered ourselves, looked at where we fell short and fixed our lapses right away,” Santos said.
Farm Fresh, which will try to bounce back against PLDT next week, struggled with its game, giving up 27 points on errors against 13 by Cignal.
Trisha Tubu led the Foxies with 13 points.
