Despite years of near misses and heartbreaks, PLDT head coach Rald Ricafort’s faith in the High Speed Hitters’ system and program never faltered.
His patience and hard work finally bore fruit with PLDT’s breakthrough season in the Premier Volleyball League.
Steering the High Speed Hitters to a perfect title conquest in the first two conferences of the 2025-2026 season, Ricafort will be feted as Coach of the Year in the 2nd Pilipinas Live PVL Press Corps Awards Night at the Novotel Manila Araneta City on May 30.
PLDT completed a sweep of the inaugural PVL on Tour to claim its first pro crown, then extended its unbeaten run to the Invitationals, achieving an impressive 15-game winning streak.
Overseeing this turnaround has been Ricafort, who received a total of 11 points from an average of 7.8 media votes and 3.2 team votes to surge past former Cignal mentor Shaq Delos Santos and Creamline’s Sherwin Meneses.
Under Ricafort, the High Speed Hitters finished fourth in the Reinforced Conference and took home a maiden bronze medal in this year’s All-Filipino tilt.
Meanwhile, in a season where their dynasty was put to the test, Creamline quickly proved why pink remains the gold standard in the PVL with its 11th title.
The Cool Smashers earned their second consecutive Team of the Year award at the annual awards rites, also supported by Immuni+ and Rebisco.
Creamline amassed a total of 10.4 points — 6.0 from media and 4.4 from team votes — while besting the PLDT High Speed Hitters and Cignal.
Coming off an uncharacteristic slump, the Cool Smashers embarked on a challenging road to redemption in the 2026 PVL All-Filipino Conference.
Even with stars like Bernadeth Pons, Jia de Guzman, and Jema Galanza back in the fold, the league darlings needed to deal with a vastly improved playing field.
Yet it was also in the season-ending conference that the crowd-drawing squad flexed its championship poise. Despite being pushed to a pair of do-or-die games — and Cignal threatening to force a decider in the finals — the Cool Smashers proved that their dynasty remained well and alive.
(C) Spikers Turf Images
If breakthrough and redemption were prominent storylines in the PVL, then they were dominant in the Spikers’ Turf, where the Criss Cross King Crunchers have emerged as the league’s new standardbearers.
Criss Cross ended seasons of heartbreak last November, winning its first-ever title after outlasting Japan’s Kindai University in an epic five-set showdown in the 2025 Invitational Conference final.
Months after winning it all in the Invitational, Criss Cross completed a title repeat in the 2026 Open Conference. The team turned back the Savouge Spin Doctors in Game 3 behind the leadership of five-time Conference Most Valuable Player Jude Garcia.
For their efforts, the King Crunchers were unanimously voted as Spikers’ Turf Team of the Year by print and online scribes covering the men’s club league organized by Sports Vision.
Head coach Tai Bundit also emerged as the clear-cut choice for Spikers’ Turf Coach of the Year, establishing the foundations of Criss Cross’s dynasty after years of settling for silver.
