LINDSEY Vander Weide has a chance to carve her name deeper into PVL history on Sunday, as Petro Gazz makes its seventh finals appearance.
READ: Petro Gazz surges to seventh PVL Finals after surviving Akari
Of the eight imports who have lifted a PVL trophy in the league’s eight-year history, Vander Weide among them, not one has ever won the Reinforced Conference twice - much less with the same franchise.
The 28-year-old American spiker now stands on the verge of becoming the first.
And she could even do it with a personal three-peat of sorts: a second title, another Finals MVP, and another Best Foreign Guest Player plum — the same hat trick she got during the Angels’ 2022 Reinforced Conference run.
Three years removed from her first taste of gold, has anything changed?
“I honestly would say I'm a pretty similar player. My mental toughness has been locked in for a while since I've been playing pro for seven, eight years. I'm just glad that I'm able to still play at a high level three years later," LVW said.
What she does feel is different is the league around her.
With three more teams compared to the nine that competed in 2022, the Reinforced Conference has become a far deeper, more unforgiving battleground.
And that, Vander Weide said, is exactly why she wanted to return in a bid to try and run it back against a tougher field.
“I said that if I ever came back to the Philippines, it would be with Petro Gazz again, and I'm just so happy I did,” she shared.
“It’s a lot of the same girls as in 2022. Literally the first day I got here, I looked at Bang [Pineda] and I said, ‘Let’s run it back.’”
Petro Gazz diesel
The Angels didn’t look the part early in the conference, but LVW never wavered and convinced everyone else in the team that they had a deep playoff run in them - maybe even deeper than the title team of 2022.
“We were a little shaky in the beginning and everybody was like, ‘Ok, we have time.’ Once we turned it around, I knew we'd be going to the playoffs,” she said.
Now, Petro Gazz’s greatest strength may not even be its returning import, but its loaded rotation.
Veterans from the 2022 title squad in Myla Pablo, Jonah Sabete, and Aiza Maizo-Pontillas, among many others, have become second unit weapons this time around. But still, they've been winning games and now only need one more for the ultimate prize.
“We have such experienced players on the bench, players who could step in at any moment,” Vander Weide said.
“With Myla coming in and scoring 26 points last game, it just shows that we can take anybody off the bench and they can be a game-changer.
“That’s the difference from 2022. We kind of had to rock with who we had then. Now, we have so much depth that it just feels even better.”
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