NXLED head coach Ettore Guidetti had a simple challenge for his team when the wave of unexpected losses kept coming: 'suffer together.'
That became the Chameleons’ anchor through a troubling four-game slide before they strung together two straight wins over ZUS Coffee and league leader PLDT to stay afloat at the close of the 2026 PVL All-Filipino Conference preliminaries.
READ SCENARIOS: Four-way race for last two PVL qualifying spots
At 5-4, Nxled has done everything it can to keep its qualifying round hopes alive. Now, all it can do is wait.
The Chameleons need either an Akari win and a Creamline loss, or a three- or four-set Farm Fresh win plus a Creamline defeat, to avoid slipping into the play-in tournament.
For Guidetti, the turnaround was built on surviving the hard part without losing sight of the bigger picture.
“What I ask to the girls is to suffer together because to develop an inch, sometimes you have to work for one mile,” Guidetti said.
“This is what we have done in the last month, and the work has been really tough and hard. Right now, it's pretty difficult to find a seam in our system of block and defense. You have to do something really special to strike at the first attempt. At the same time, the development inside out and in service is really consistent.”
More than the Xs and Os, though, Guidetti took the most satisfaction in how Nxled is starting to see the light again after it once dimmed.
“I'm really glad to see the team playing better. That's the thing that I really love,” he said.
'Roll with the punches'
For reigning MVP Brooke Van Sickle, the rough patch also revealed what the Chameleons are made of.
Instead of folding under the weight of a skid they never saw coming, Nxled chose to stay the course and keep working.
“It can be easy just to kind of let those losses affect you but I’m really proud of all the players on Nxled for being able to be resilient and still stick it through it no matter what,” Van Sickle said.
“We’ve been doing an excellent job just taking the punches and rolling with them and just getting in the gym every day and continue to have that work ethic to continue to push.”
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