Nearing title, Angels on guard as Cool Smashers seek series equalizer
At the very least, Petro Gazz can rest assured that its stars are on the same page.
Star hitter Brooke Van Sickle. The versatile MJ Phillips. The relentless Jonah Sabete. The veteran Myla Pablo. Each one of them knows how important Thursday will be for the Angels, who will shoot for the PVL All-Filipino crown in a bid to nail the franchise’s first title without an import.
“We have to stay grounded and [in the] present and continue to focus,” Van Sickle said. “Even though we won [Game 1], there’s a lot of things that we need to work on and we only got a day [to prepare].”
“It’s still best two out of three and we can’t get ahead of ourselves.”
Van Sickle is playing her first championship series with the Angels, and she has Phillips to remind her how sitting on a 1-0 lead in a best-of-three series means little when the team on the opposite end of the floor is the dynastic Creamline squad.
The Angels once led the Cool Smashers in the finals of this same tournament, then dropped the next two games as Creamline notched the first of its three consecutive All-Filipino crowns.
“I remember that and take that as fuel,” Phillips said. “We’re not going to have that; [we don’t want to] repeat the past.”
Sabete and Pablo, who played key roles in Tuesday’s 25-17, 25-20, 18-25, 20-25, 15-10 Game 1 triumph, don’t need any nudging to play their best in Thursday’s Game 2 at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Two sets down
“We’ll just play like there’s no tomorrow,” Sabete said. “That’s what we’re thinking. We’re not thinking about what’s next. We’re focused on the present.”
“We need to focus only on Thursday’s game,” the 31-year-old Pablo said, paying particular attention to the fact that the Cool Smashers fought back from being two sets down to force a deciding set.
“We know Creamline will bounce back, so we’re focusing on fixing the lapses from the third and fourth sets, and hopefully, we can figure it out,” Pablo said.
The Cool Smashers, meanwhile, already have their sights set on leveling the series.
“There were some lapses in understanding during the game. And maybe [we] also [lacked] composure,” said Creamline hitter Jema Galanza. “It felt like we still had a chance, but we just fell short in the end.”
“It’s not over. I think we just really need to fight from the very start,” she added.
