THERE’S always a first time for everything.
Come the 2024 PVL Invitational Conference finals on Thursday, it could either be Cignal lifting its first league championship or Creamline completing Philippine pro volleyball’s first Grand Slam.
READ: Cignal arranges finals duel with Creamline in PVL Invitational
Less than 24 hours since their final preliminary round assignments, there’ll be little to no rest for the two title contenders as they take center stage one last time this season at the Big Dome.
As such, the Invitationals crown will soon rest on the heads of whichever team can best exhibit physical and mental fortitude in their winner-take-all showdown.
Here’s all you need to know ahead of a star-studded closing salvo of an eventful 2024 PVL season.
#1 Creamline vs. #2 Cignal
WHEN: Thursday, September 12, 6 p.m.
WHERE: Smart Araneta Coliseum
WATCH: One Sports, One Sports+, RPTV, Pilipinas Live, pvl.ph/live
Third time’s the charm for?
Since Cignal joined the PVL in 2021, it had 11 matches against Creamline in both preliminaries and playoffs combined.
The Cool Smashers won nine — six in a row since the 2023 1st All-Filipino Conference, and two of the last three wins being five-setters.
For a vengeful HD Spikers side, the seething wounds left by a crushing reverse-sweep Reinforced Conference semifinals loss just two weeks ago still sting.
And losing to Creamline again in the Invitationals prelims nine days from that semis defeat didn’t help Cignal’s case either.
The hope for the HD Spikers is to score their most important win yet in what will be their third battle against Creamline in a two-week period, more so with reigning best foreign guest player MJ Perez leading the league in scoring (79 points), spiking (37.23 percent efficiency), and blocking (0.47 blocks per set).
READ: A look back at Creamline's last two Grand Slam misses
But for Creamline, it will be all about exorcising the ghosts of two failed Grand Slam bids in the last two years and getting the job done in their third try, as mainstay Jema Galanza returns to the fold with champion trio Bernadeth Pons, Michele Gumabao, and American import Erica Staunton.
No ‘second’ wasted
The last time Cignal reached a PVL Finals in the 2022 Reinforced Conference, it finished second.
Then-American reinforcement Tai Bierria just fell short of leading the HD Spikers to championship glory despite topping the single-round robin semifinals.
But with Perez, her first Cignal stint which ended in bronze could be topped with either the franchise’s second silver or first-ever gold.
Meanwhile, the last time Creamline played in the Invitational Conference finals just a year ago, it also finished second.
Now-dethroned champions Kurashiki Ablaze stunned the Cool Smashers in last year’s knockout title game that went the distance and was won through a service ace to cap Set 5 at 16-14.
Since then, Creamline's just third finals loss in seven years, they’d go on to win the next three conferences.
First title or first Grand Slam?
It was back in 2013 when Cignal’s women’s volleyball team was formed to join the now-defunct Philippine Superliga (PSL).
READ: Cignal's PSL champs out to prevent Creamline’s PVL Grand Slam bid
Unlike their male counterparts with eight titles across three leagues, the HD Spikers only have one PSL title to their name.
And it happened to be in an Invitational Conference, too, back in 2017, with veteran libero Jheck Dionela as the one and only holdover from that title-winning team.
On the grander scheme of things, even as Creamline has long established itself as the most successful volleyball franchise in Philippine sports, a Grand Slam continues to elude the nine-time PVL champions.
It could all change, however, with a win on Thursday evening.
At least for now, only the PBA has bore witness to Grand Slams in terms of pro leagues in the country.
The only teams to have achieved such a feat? Crispa (1976 and 1983), San Miguel (1989), Alaska (1996), and San Mig Coffee (2013-14).
By the end of what has been a hectic 2024 season, it will either be Cignal that’ll enter an exclusive six-club champions’ circle or Creamline becoming the sixth entrant in an elite sporting list of domestic Grand Slam winners.
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