ANTIPOLO — In a five-month-long conference that could showcase roughly 100 games, expect PVL competition to also be at its best.
Joint league-leader PLDT raised the curtains on the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference with a pair of season-opening victories over Nxled in four sets and Galeries Tower in three.
READ: Rald Ricafort sees one point of improvement for hot-starting PLDT
While such results on paper may seem straightforward, both games were anything but easy for the High Speed Hitters.
Is it worth it? Let 'em work it
It will take time for young teams with promising pieces like PLDT’s first two opponents to position themselves as title contenders, but best believe they’re now competitive enough to give the so-called ‘big teams’ a run for their money.
“Wala na 'yung sure win na mga teams,” said PLDT head coach Rald Ricafort.
“Tulad niyan, nanalo rin yung ZUS [Coffee for the first time]. Umangat na talaga ‘yung level lahat after nu’ng Reinforced [Conference], so wala ka na talagang masasabi na easy win kapag pumunta ka.
“‘Yung level din, tumaas nga lahat. Kapag ‘yung katulad nga sa’min [against Galeries Tower] na medyo nagbibigay ka ng runs, talagang lalayo’t lalayo sila eh. Lahat palaban na ngayon.”
Raise the roof
Even after her 28-piece in straight sets over the up-and-coming Highrisers, Savi Davison knew such a win and performance won’t ever be handed on a silver platter.
“We watched them take Choco [Mucho] to five and also watch them take Akari to four. We never said that it’s gonna be easy. We just needed to make sure that we’d close out and came up with what we needed to, the adjustments in how we played and all that stuff," said Davison.
The rest of the field moving up gives perennial contenders like PLDT even more reason to raise the bar even higher for everyone else to catch.
As Davison puts it, “We may have fallen back a little bit but I thought that we still fought and that’s a sign of growth.”
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