Creamline eyes tournament sweep, 3rd straight All-Filipino crown

A 15-0 sweep of the tournament and a third straight PVL All-Filipino crown.

That is the mission Creamline is looking to accomplish in Game Two of the 2023 PVL 2nd All-Filipino Conference best-of-three finale against Choco Mucho at the Smart Araneta Colisum in Quezon City today, December 16.

BENCH BOUND Tots Carlos (left) runs toward the Creamline coaching staff on the bench in a bid to save the ball in Game One of the PVL 2nd All-Filipino Conference finals at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023.PHOTO BY RIO DELUVIO 

The defending champions will face the upset-seeking Flying Titans at 6 p.m. after Game Two of the best-of-three battle for third place between the Cignal HD Spikers and the Chery Tiggo Crossovers at 4 p.m.

Cignal leads that series, 1-0.

Creamline put itself on the cusp of securing its seventh PVL crown and fifth All-Filipino championship after holding off Choco Mucho, 26-24, 19-25, 26-24, 25-22, last Thursday at the Mall of Asia Arena.

It was the 10th consecutive victory of the Cool Smashers over the Flying Titans in the league. Creamline is also 14-0 in the tournament.

While the Flying Titans are playing in the PVL finals for the first time, Cool Smashers team captain and three-time league Most Valuable Player Alyssa Valdez said that they are no pushovers, giving credit to the resolve of the underdogs.

Valdez, who fired 11 points including key hits in the third set of Game One, said that the Cool Smashers will continue to rely on head coach Sherwin Meneses’ system which has given the team three titles so far.

“I guess knowing Choco Mucho, most of the players played in the UAAP championships. They played in big stadiums, so they are used to the big crowd. They really showed it [in Game One] but for us, we’re really banking on the system that coach has been instilling with us since last year. That’s the level of trust we’re giving to that system,” said Valdez.

“I guess it’s a different challenge for us this championship because this is the first time that we’re facing our sister team and we all know how much they’ve improved and that’s why they made the finals. This is a different challenge, it’s a different motivation for us in this finals.”

Creamline, meanwhile, looks to win its first PVL championship without former starting setter Jia de Guzman.

After the Invitational Conference that ended last July, de Guzman left Creamline to play for Denso Airybees in Japan.

On the other hand, the Flying Titans look to extend for one more game their magical conference which saw them win 12 of their last 14 games, highlighted by a 10-game winning run.

The Dante Alinsunurin-mentored and Sisi Rondina-led team looks to replicate what it did in the semifinals against Cignal, recover from a Game One loss to stay alive and put itself in a position to reverse sweep the opposition in the series.

“As coach Dante said, the fight is not over yet. We’ve done this before during our semifinals series and I think we can bounce back and we’re going to recover and prepare our mindset,” said Rondina, who finished with 17 points and 19 receptions in Game One.

“The game is not over yet and we’re still going to fight. We know Creamline doesn’t just yield easily. They’re legitimate contenders and they’re used to these kinds of games.”