Lindsey Vander Weide fires up Petro Gazz to keep title bid going

Petro Gazz import Lindsey Vander Weide. PVL PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — If Petro Gazz wants to be in the 2022 Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference finals, Lindsey Vander Weide said the Angels just need to believe they are capable of winning it all.

Coming off a disappointing three-set loss to Creamline on Wednesday, Vander Weide joined hands with Myla Pablo and Aiza Maizo-Pontillas to keep their title-retention bid alive with a dominant 25-15, 25-17, 25-13 victory over Chery Tiggo on Sunday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

Vander Weide unleashed a game-high 18 points, firing 14 attacks and four service aces to boot the Crossovers out of finals contention. But it wasn’t just her stellar game that fueled her teammates.

“I told the team before this game that we need to believe that we could see ourselves in the championship and be that winning team,” said the American import shortly after the win. “I said that we need to play like that because I felt like in our first game against Creamline we weren’t playing like we could see ourselves at the end with the championship.”

Her teammates responded big time with Pablo and Pontillas contributing in attacking and MJ Phillips and Remy Palma taking care of the frontline. Setter Djanel Cheng’s playmaking also clicked as Petro Gazz showed it has what it takes to go on another title run.

“I think our mindset kinda switched today. We knew what we needed to do and we took care of it and it felt great,” Vander Weide said. “My performance was solid, my attacking was better, me and Cheng was meshing today which was great. My blocking, obviously it needs to be better, but overall it was a great team performance.”

Petro Gazz, which ruled the 2019 Reinforced Conference before the pandemic forced the import-laced tournament into a long layoff, tied Finals rival Creamline in the second place with identical 1-1 records.

The Angels need to sweep the unbeaten Cignal HD Spikers (2-0) on Tuesday to keep their title hopes alive. 

“I mean we took them to five, they’re a good team, they’re really dynamic, all-around and they have great players but it’s a team that we played well against in certain sets so we know how to compete against them,” said Vander Weide referring to their five-set loss to Cignal in the elimination. “We just need to replicate what we did in those sets that we beat them.”