It’s been eight years since she was last named the Most Valuable Player, but setter Rhea Dimaculangan is still finding ways to improve.
Dimaculangan was last Finals MVP when the University of Santo Tomas Golden Tigresses last won a UAAP championship in Season 72. And this time around, she had a lot of familiar faces around her when she was deemed best player in the the 2018 Chooks to Go-Philippine Superliga All-Filipino Conference.
She had her college coach Shaq Delos Santos, as well her longtime runningmate Aiza Maizo-Pontillas with her on Petron. Dimaculangan also helped take down a team of DLSU Lady Spikers in the F2 Logistics Cargo Movers and their head coach Ramil De Jesus.
Dimaculangan was every inch the prolific setter in the PSL Finals as she was in the UAAP. To clinch the title, the 28-year old tossed 31 excellent sets which propelled Petron to a straight-sets win.
“Parang wala ngang nagbago eh,” said the 27-year-old, Batangas-native of her two MVP performances.
“Ganoon pa rin ‘yung pakikitungo namin ni coach Shaq. And malaking pasalamat ko talaga sa kanya kasi napakalaki pa rin ng tiwala niya sa akin.”
Dimaculangan became the first setter to receive an MVP trophy since Tina Salak. But since she always thinks of her teammates first, Dimaculangan was surprised to receive the award at all.
“Sobrang surprised kasi siyempre, pinaghirapan namin ‘yung championship as a team. Para sa team talaga ‘tong award na ‘to.”
