Creamline’s Bernadeth Pons.–PVL PHOTO
Creamline continues to stand tall with a perfect record in the PVL All-Filipino Conference, but if the Cool Smashers will take away something from a close call on Saturday night, it would be that it’s not over until it’s over.
The Cool Smashers checked what would have been a big implosion against a severely undermanned Cignal side, with a 25-19, 26-24, 23-25, 23-25, 19-15 escape act leaving a lot of things for Creamline coaching staff to ponder on moving forward.
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“This is a lesson for us to not rest during a game,” coach Sherwin Meneses said in Filipino. “We need to give 100 percent until the very end. That game was a big challenge for us heading into the next game.”
Saturday was just the second time in the Cool Smashers’ 7-0 record that they were forced to a deciding set, and Meneses doesn’t want to go through a suspense theater like that again in their bid for an elimination round sweep.
Chery Tiggo, improving Farm Fresh, PLDT and Galeries Tower are the last games for the Cool Smashers, who are defending one of three titles they swept in a Grand Slam season last year.
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And it is also because of the experience of winning so many tight games that bailed the Cool Smashers against the HD Spikers, who are still playing without ex-skipper Ces Molina and middle blocker Ria Meneses.
“The breaks [just] went our way,” Meneses said. “It also helped that the team is used to those kinds of matches. It’s a big advantage. There wasn’t any specific instructions, just the players’ willingness to win.”
Rising star Bernadeth Pons typified that statement of Meneses with a hefty 27-point outing apart from 14 excellent digs. And the reigning Reinforced Conference MVP echoed her coach’s observation.
“We lost energy in the third and fourth set,” Pons said in Filipino after coming to the Cool Smashers’ rescue, a performance that topped off an impressive week that had the PVL Press Corps naming her as its Player of the Week from the period of Jan. 28 to Feb. 1.
“I just want to be consistent. I want to improve every day,” Pons continued as she again leads the stacked and hopefully not overconfident Cool Smashers against Chery Tiggo on Thursday. INQ. INQ
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