IN the offseason leading to the 2025 PVL All-Filipino Conference, fans were treated to a league-wide hurricane of player recruitments and overhauls.
Most teams headlined double-figure recruitments and shifts that the league hasn’t seen in that magnitude for years.
Well, most except for Cignal, which only signed one new player and kept their core of Vanie Gandler, Gel Cayuna, and Dawn Macandili-Catindig.
READ: Cignal back on track after venting ire on struggling ZUS Coffee
“I always believed in my team. volleyball is a game of connection and having to gel with one another,” said Gandler, who was on the forefront of the Super Spikers' sweep of Zus Coffee with 20 points on 18 attacks.
“Each player in our team is a key player, from the bench to the first six. So even if other teams had a lot of recruitment, we always had a bar that we just needed to work on.”
But while the other highly-anticipated squads have yet to see their hauls bear fruit, it is the Super Spikers sitting atop the standings at a 5-2 record.
Still, Gandler is far from satisfied with their play.
“I'm happy, of course, but we know that it's far from over. We know that every team is getting stronger, it's getting harder towards the end of the elimination round.
So now's not the time for us to be complacent and then slow down.”
Through thick and thin
Thriving in an ever-competitive PVL landscape is a feat in itself, but managing that good of a start with an intact core speaks volumes on the continuity they’re trying to build.
And for Gandler, even if the season is still early to have them as sure contenders, seeing them thrive after everything the team has been through is more than enough fuel for them to keep going.
“We've experienced so many losses from the moment I stepped in Cignal. I've been playing with the same people on the board, we've been feeling so many heartbreaks, and that's why we know that we need to hold on to what we're doing, and we need to keep on improving," shesaid.
“There are times that you're one point away from winning a championship, we lost, and yeah, so, of course, it feels great that we're able to do well right now, but we're really not stopping.”
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