UNLIKE most teams, Petro Gazz has gone out of its way of having three setters in its rotation throughout the 2025 PVL Reinforced Conference.
It has two veteran playmakers onboard in Chie Saet and Djanel Cheng, along with this year’s 11th overall draft pick in Jules Tolentino.
The rookie setter currently sits 11th in the league among playmakers with 3.00 excellent sets ahead of Cheng in 13th (2.64) and Saet in 19th (0.36).
A rotation of setters is unorthodox, as it tends to be disruptive to the playmaking flow on the floor.
But it’s one head coach Gary Van Sickle does out of necessity to stay on par with the opposition’s towering imports - and not just for the sake of mixing and matching his aces.
“They’re equally talented, but as practice has been going on, [we’re constantly adjusting] because the imports are big, they're tall,” Van Sickle told SPIN.ph.
“We can't have them all play out there with the size of the imports that are hitting. It’s basically us using the two bigger setters, but they all have great talent,” pertaining to 5-foot-11 Tolentino and 5-foot-7 Cheng, ahead of 5-foot-5 Saet in terms of height.
“If they're not playing, they can come in and serve also for us, so it's a big help. I like having the three of them on there.”
Tolentino's talents
Van Sickle also lauded his rookie for playing beyond her years in the past few games she’s been able to start for the Angels.
Despite being underutilized in the college ranks, GVS has so far unlocked more of Tolentino’s skillset which also includes net defense.
‘She's actually a really good block, she plays pretty good defense, and she's quick on her feet. For her, I think it's more on just being more confident, and the more she plays, I think she'll get more confident doing that,” said Van Sickle.
“We feel good having her start and she has Chie to back her up, but if she doesn't have a good practice leading up to the next game, we could [make changes]. It's not like a setter is set for the next match, we still kind of determine that like maybe the day before.”
As such, just a few games into his first PVL coaching stint, GVS wants to extract the maximum from his streaking Angels, but ‘doesn’t want to really disturb the chemistry that's going on.’
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