Blaze Spikers won’t be taking it easy
With six conference titles under its belt, Petron is not stopping anytime soon.
That’s the underlying sentiment inside the Blaze Spikers’ locker room in the din of the revelry over their masterful Philippine Superliga Grand Prix campaign Saturday night.
And to make it even scarier for the Superliga field, coach Shaq delos Santos vowed that they will be working even harder.
“We give our 100 percent every conference, whether we’re the reigning champions or not,” Delos Santos said. “We have no plans of taking it easy because we want to have a winning culture at Petron.”
Petron trounced F2 Logistics in the best-of-three finals, 2-1, winning 19 of the 20 total games—highlighted by an astounding 17-game winning streak from the eliminations to the title series.
That streak is an all-time longest, surpassing the franchise’s 14-game sweep to the All-Filipino title four years ago.
“We’re not yet done. We will work hard to win more titles,” Delos Santos added.
Petron’s Stephanie Niemer bagged the Most Valuable Player award and the Best Scorer diadem, while fellow import Khat Bell was Best Outside Hitter (foreign). Rhea Dimaculangan was Best Setter.
Immediately, Niemer and Bell said they are open to returning next year.
Delos Santos said the edge Petron had over F2 proved to be their communication.
“We had a small talk after losing Game 1 and that proved to be the pivotal point because we really understood each other,” he added.
Also winning individual awards were F2 Logistics’ Ara Galang (Best Outside Spiker, local), Aby Maraño (Best Middle Blocker, local) and Dawn Macandili (Best Libero).
PLDT’s Grace Lazard and Aiko Urdas ran away with the Best Middle Blocker, foreign and Best Opposite Spiker, local awards, respectively.
