Mylene Paat shrugged off the possibility of winning the Most Valuable Player award as she sets her sight on leading Chery Tiggo to its second Premier Volleyball League championship in the 2022 Reinforced Conference.
Paat is currently the top local scorer in the conference, placing third overall with a total of 160 points throughout eight games. She also ranks fourth in the spiking department with a 37.09 success rate.
Only Paat and Creamline’s Jema Galanza (10th) were the only Filipinos in the top 10 spikers of the import-laden conference.
“Sa akin po hindi [pa pumapasok sa isip ko] kasi ang purpose ko lang is tulungan yung team ko. As long as umaangat yung team doon ako masaya,” said Paat.
“Kung sakaling may bonus man na ibigay sa akin ni God and of course, PVL, sobrang thankful na rin ako,” she added.
The 28-year-old opposite spiker helped the Crossovers solidify their spot in the semifinals on Thursday night, delivering a team-best 23 points built on 20 attacks to go along with 11 excellent digs in the 25-20, 18-25, 22-25, 25-16, 18-16 triumph over PLDT at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
Paat said that she just reminded her teammates to keep their fighting spirits up after losing the second and third sets that put them at a 1-2 disadvantage against a very motivated High Speed Hitters team.
“Lagi lang namin sinasabi sa loob ng court na kailangan sa puso’t isip natin, sa atin to. Yung fighting spirit ng team kailangan namin ilabas which is nangyari naman nung fifth set,” said the national team stalwart.
With the group stage now done, Paat said that they will continue the same approach they did in the preliminaries heading into the round robin semifinals which is to take games one step at a time.
“Tulad nung naging mindset namin ng elimination one step at a time one game at a time so kung sino makakalaro namin sa araw na to yun yung pagfofocusan namin.”
