In every tournament, for any sport, foreign reinforcements are truly solid additions to any franchise.
As for the Pocari Sweat Lady Warriors in the 13th Shakey’s V-League Reinforced Conference, American import Breanna Mackie has been doing wonders for the 2016 Open Conference titlists.
The Lady Warriors, who stretched their winning streak to four games on Monday night against Laoag Power Smashers, have been receiving a huge lift from Mackie with an average of 17 markers in their last five outings.
With her excellent outputs each and every game, the California native says the exact same thing most elite athletes quip, that it all comes from self-discipline and hard work.
“I think a lot of it comes from discipline and a lot of hard work in practice. I’ve had a long background in playing volleyball, so I’m just working hard,” said Mackie, who last played for VCB Cheseaux in Switzerland prior to playing here.
But despite her individual prowess, the Long Beach State alumna — with a Master’s degree in Sports Psychology — still emphasized that team effort is the true foundation of their current winning streak.
“It’s always been a team effort. It’s been nice playing with all the other girls. They’re very welcoming and they’re making it fun to play so we really work hard together,” said Mackie.
After dropping their opening game last October 5 against the now-struggling Air Force, the Lady Warriors then went on a rampage, winning their last four matches via straight sets.
And according to the six-foot-three open spiker, their opening loss against their 2016 Open Conference Finals opponents Air Force generated a lot of impact over their growth as a team, and made them realize that they have to be on the same page every time.
“From the loss, I think it’s our mentality knowing that we have great athletes on our team but we need to work hard together and it’s not gonna come easy. We still have to work hard.”
“We learned a lot from our first loss. We just continue to work on our strengths and our chemistry,” she added.
Now that Pocari have hit a groove with their ongoing streak, and have a strong chance of extending it as they play their last two matches of the preliminary round, Mackie assured that the team will not be complacent as the stretch goes along.
“No. I think our biggest competition comes at the end. And we know that. And we’re just working everyday to get better and to take on these matches and put all our hardwork from practice and see how we do in our matches. So I don’t think we’ll get complacent,” Mackie claimed.
Pocari’s next match will be this Saturday against another streaking team, the BaliPure Purest Water Defenders, and for Mackie, they will focus more on themselves as a unit to be able to move better and eke out another win.
“We’re just gonna keep doing what we do. We’re gonna worry about our side of the net. We’re gonna stay calm and work really hard during practice and hopefully continue winning in straight sets,” she vowed.
