Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
The Pocari Sweat Lady Warriors may be frolicking in the sands of Boracay the past few days, but there was a time when things weren’t always fine and rosy. A championship run can have many turning points, and for these women it came early in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Reinforced Conference.
Pocari star Myla Pablo slumped on the floor in agony after aggravating the pain in her back after a crucial play. It was only an elimination-round game, but the sight of Pablo in pain had teammates, the coaching staff and fans of the Lady Warriors worrying about the open spiker’s health.
While reinforcements later came to beef up the squad, Pablo remained its heart and soul. On their way to the hospital for Pablo’s checkup, team manager Eric Anthony Ty broached the idea of resting her for the entire tournament. She refused.
“I can’t just leave the team,” Ty recalls Pablo as saying. “There’s a championship for us to win.”
The back injury had bothered Pablo right from the start. When the Warriors opened the season with back-to-back defeats, she was also asked to sit out the conference. But there was no way she would miss out on this run.
Pablo, who signed a multimillion five-year deal with the club early this year, typified the Lady Warriors’ resilience on their road to the crown at the expense of the BaliPure Water Defenders.
“If Myla decided to shut down for the rest of the conference, we wouldn’t have won the title,” says Ty, who retired as team manager recently. “She just proved that she’s our franchise player.”
American import Krystal Rivers, a cancer surivor, proved almost unstoppable in the finals, while Michelle Strizak played solid throughout the tournament. Everyone in coach Rommel Abella’s squad did more than her share to clinch a third straight championship for Pocari Sweat, starting with the Shakey’s V-League Open and Reinforced Conferences last year.
“We were in a pretty bad shape at the start of the tournament,” says Ty. “Players were injured probably because we started preparing as early as January. We were in a state of flux.”
The level of competition in the PVL had also gone up with teams raring to come up with a creditable showing in the first tournament since the switch from the Shakey’s V-League. “In terms of parity in the lineups, this was one of the most competitive tournaments we played in,” says Ty.
Abella also praised Gyzelle Sy and Melissa Gohing in their title run. “They were great all throughout the conference and they held the team together,” he says. “In all the adversities that we faced, they stepped up and provided the leadership the team needed.”
In the end, this turned out to be the toughest and sweetest championship yet for the Lady Warriors, whose move from the Philippine Superliga to the established PVL raised plenty of eyebrows.
Nonetheless, the club owned by Federated Distributors Inc. has come a long way from a last-place finish in its debut in the PSL in 2014. That windup by the squad, then known as Mane ’N Tail, proved to be an eye-opener for management which decided to come up with a 15-year plan in an effort to make its mark in the volleyball scene.
“Our goal was not just to win championships, but also to supply the national team with players,” says Ty. Three years after the plan was hatched, the Lady Warriors have emerged as one of the most successful clubs in the PVL.
The club then known as Philips Gold placed third twice in the PSL, behind the efforts of Pablo, Gohing and Michelle Gumabao, who is no longer with the team. Their three straight titles are a record in the PVL, organized by Sports Vision.
“You have to go way back to the time when we were still called Mane ’N Tail and were given just a few hours to decide on having a franchise,” says Ty. “But we didn’t want to be known as a losing team, that’s why we invested in a long-term plan.”
The signing of Pablo to a long-term contract was the biggest indication of Pocari’s commitment to winning. “We try to build a team and that has given us an edge because our core is intact and we’ve jelled,” says Ty, reflecting on their success. “We have a family atmosphere. Everyone looks after each other. We have players who at one point were team captains in other clubs. But they’ve set aside egos to work together for a common goal.”
As the club looks ahead to the next PVL conference, key pieces will be added to shore up the lineup. But with resilience, toughness and commitment to winning ingrained in the squad’s DNA over the years, there’s no reason to doubt Pocari’s abilities to collect more crowns. And who knows, the next title celebration won’t just be in Boracay.