As harsh as the 2019 PVL Reinforced Conference championship loss was, Creamline skipper Alyssa Valdez could only admit that the Petro Gazz Angels were the better team in the title series.
“We have to give it to Petro Gazz kasi their imports, they played perfectly today. And their locals really supported them pretty well,” the reigning PVL Most Valuable Player said.
“We know na buong buo yung puso nila to win.”
Save for Game One in which Creamline dispatched Petro Gazz in four sets, the Angels dominated every statistical category in the scoring department the rest of the way. Not even the Cool Smashers’ vaunted efficiency in the service area was left unharmed.
Given this, the six-time V-League champion believes that the title in this year’s import-flavored tourney was not meant to be for the Cool Smashers.
Still, she insisted that this loss would never be a detriment to their growth as a team; instead, she sees it as a wake-up call that they will be using as motivation to bounce back and improve.
As she put it, “It’s not that we had nothing to lose back there but probably it’s not for us.
“Sabi nga namin we have bigger things to achieve pa, this time sinasabi lang sa amin ni God na we have to work harder,” the product of Ateneo bared.
“So, ngayon ginising Niya kami para for the next conference.”
Though the Cool Smashers suffered back-to-back defeats to Petro Gazz, Valdez knows that they just have to stick with the system that Tai Bundit has integrated for them which did wonders for the team that led to two championships for the Rebisco-owned franchise.
“For the past more than a month, we’ve been under coach Tai before and we’ve been under a different coach [Li Hainning] also,” Valdez shared.
“It was a different conference for us cause we had to re-adjust, adjust again and really do something different in our team siguro.
“Hanggang ngayon nagaadjust pa rin kami para sa magandang process and progress para sa team,” she continued.
At the end of the day, they could only move forward. And Valdez vows that Creamline will bounce back come the Open Conference which begins on August 10.
“We take that as a learning lesson talaga for the future conferences,” she said.
“Babawi talaga kami.”
