IT has been a pretty one-sided rivalry between Petro Gazz and Creamline, with the Angels only winning seven in their 33 meetings against the biggest dynasty in the PVL's young history.
READ: Brooke Van Sickle was always undersized - but never overmatched
The Cool Smashers have also won 20 of their last 23 matches with the Angels, including the playoffs and the finals in multiple occasions.
But no loss to Creamline stung harder than Petro Gazz’s one and only defeat so far in the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference in straight sets, 19-25, 22-25, 16-25, last November in Antipolo as the league leaders welcomed their captain Alyssa Valdez back after a four-month injury layoff.
The Angels went on to win their next six games to improve to 7-1 since that dismal performance against the defending champions.
What changed since then? A whole lot, says the team’s two leading scorers in reigning MVP Brooke Van Sickle and an in-form Myla Pablo.
“In our practice environment right now, I always talk about it with MJ (Phillips) like ‘wow, our practices are getting really intense.’ Not that they weren’t before, but now it’s just a dogfight basically at practice,” Van Sickle said.
“We have high expectations for us and we’re also holding ourselves to higher standards. We want to win and it’s going to be hard, but we have to try everything that we can.”
From hitting rock bottom after a devastating blowout loss, Pablo made it a point to lift herself and the team up as no one else would do that for them to get back on track but themselves alone.
“Nag-start naman ito sa Creamline na we lost straight sets talaga. Sabi namin in the next game, kailangan maging motivation namin ‘yung game na ‘yun (…) na kailangang i-angat mo ‘yung sarili mo.”
“Nu’ng una mahirap pero kailangan talaga everyday sa training, kailangang i-accept kung ano ‘yung magiging outcome niya sa loob ng court and game na rin.”
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