PVL: ‘Still lot of work’ ahead for unbeaten Creamline, says Bea de Leon
Creamline Cool Smashers’ Bea De Leon during an PVL All-Filipino Conference game. –PVL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Bea De Leon has fully embraced Creamline’s winning culture as she remains hungry for more despite their blazing 8-0 start in the 2024-25 PVL All-Filipino Conference.
De Leon dropped 13 points as Creamline stayed on top with a 25-17, 25-17, 25-21 sweep of Chery Tiggo on Thursday at Philsports Arena.
READ; PVL: Creamline still on a roll, sweeps Chery Tiggo for 8-0 record
The Cool Smashers, who made a historic Grand Slam last year, have now won 18 straight games since their last defeat in August in the Reinforced Conference.
De Leon believes the culture of coach Sherwin Meneses and the leadership of Alyssa Valdez always keep the Cool Smashers on top of their game amid their 10 titles in the league.
“I’m relatively new here, so from the outside looking in, I’m really impressed with their mindset because even though they’ve already achieved so much, their work ethic is still so high. Their discipline is top-notch, and the level of training is always high. That’s really motivating for me to see. Despite all the greatness they’ve already accomplished, they’re still 100% all in, as if we haven’t won anything before,” De Leon said.
“I’m really impressed with that part, and I think, like Coach Sherwin said, there’s still a long way to go. Of course, it’s a great place to be in now, but there’s still a lot of work ahead for us this season.”
SCHEDULE: PVL All-Filipino Conference 2024-2025
With three more preliminary games to go before the qualification round where they fight for a lot to the quarterfinals, the star middle blocker is keeping her mindset of taking every match like a championship game.
“We’re reminded that we have to work harder. Coming into every game, it’s as if we fight for a championship and kailangan talaga naming makuha as much as possible every game,” she said.
The ex-Ateneo stalwart applied the winning mindset against Chery Tiggo, which served as the streak busters to Creamline when the latter tallied the league record 25-game win streak from 2019 to 2021 and 19 consecutive wins from 2023-24.
“From the past game, we were up by two sets, but then we had lapses in the middle, so we were just reminded that when we have that kind of advantage, we really need to maximize it,” De Leon said.
“Personally, I really just want to aim for consistency, so I wanted to come into this game with a good mindset and stay focused with the help of my teammates. All of us here wanted the same thing, especially when we were up by two sets, we wanted that extra push to finish it in three,” she added.
