Petro Gazz’s Wilma Salas saves the ball during a game against PLDT in the PVL Reinforced Conference.–MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.net
It is no coincidence that Petro Gazz’s return to winning form comes at a time when Wilma Salas is finding her groove.
Saturday’s win by the defending champions reinforces that point.
The Angels’ import, however, dished credit off to her teammates.
“The important thing for me is that the team helped me every time and they stayed with me [when I was not as effective],” Salas said after logging another conference-best 40 points in a crucial 22-25, 25-19, 23-25, 25-19, 16-14 triumph against PLDT at Mall of Asia Arena.
Facing one of the toughest teams in the conference, the Angels needed all of those 40 points. And Salas could not have picked a better time to explode.
The Cuban hasn’t been the most productive for the Angels at the start of the conference where, after winning against ZUS Coffee in their opener, the reigning champions dropped three consecutive games.
But Petro Gazz has reversed that slide, winning three straight, including a victory over seven-time champion Creamline—a win where Salas punched in 34 points.
The Angels improved to a 4-3 card with their hopes of moving on to the knockout quarterfinals looking bright as each game passes.
“My personal motivation is about the team because the point is … to stay together; and when [we] go to the court, we don’t think if we win or not, we think about staying together. I think this is the power of Petro Gazz until now,” Salas said.
Fiery sidekick
Brooke van Sickle played fiery sidekick to Salas, torching the High Speed Hitters with 32 points.
“Compared to the past games, right now we’re playing very cohesively. I feel like we are able to communicate in ways that we weren’t really doing in the beginning, so it’s helping us gel more and have that chemistry,” Van Sickle said.
“Everyone has that mindset to say ‘Okay, we put ourselves in this situation, okay now let’s fight. I feel like everyone has that fight mentality right now. Everyone’s doing such a good job of whatever they can to produce or give to the team, they’re willing to do that 100 percent,” she added.
They’ll need to step up big-time again against Kath Bell and Chery Tiggo, a game that could determine Petro Gazz’s fate this conference.
“Going into [the game against PLDT] everyone knew how important this game is to us to be able to make it to the next round. So we knew we had to fight,” Van Sickle said. “Our backs are against the wall and I feel like we’re just taking it day by day, game by game. I’m really proud of the team, we’ve been able to pull off five setters and that’s really hard to do.
“It’s very stressful … when it gets to five sets, it can go either way. You just don’t know what’s gonna happen and as an athlete you wanna play in these situations even though it sucks at the same time, but you wanna be in those environments because that’s what makes it fun.”