Van Sickle will be key in Angels’ quest to unseat longtime PVL queens
Brooke Van Sickle is getting ready and excited, and Creamline knows that.
With a few days to cool their heels and map out battle plans, Van Sickle and Petro Gazz embark on a mission starting Tuesday next week to unseat the PVL queens in the Cool Smashers, who know exactly whom to stop to deny the Angels once again in the All-Filipino Conference Finals.
“They’re always in the finals, so I’m gearing up,” Van Sickle, the reigning MVP, had said after making the title series first and asked of their potential foes. “I already kind of been mentally preparing for the rematch, and I know for a fact if we do end up rematching them, they’re going to come out at 120 percent, so we’ve got to be ready.”
There isn’t exactly a rematch as far as Van Sickle is concerned, for she wasn’t on the team when the Angels played the Cool Smashers in the finals the last time around.
That’s why, for all intents and purposes, she could be the biggest difference for Petro Gazz.
“After so many conferences [in the PVL], Brooke has adjusted very well to the system and discipline of her team,” Creamline superstar Alyssa Valdez said Thursday night after leading the Cool Smashers to the best-of-three series with a sweep of Choco Mucho. “We can all see that she has fitted well and is in sync with the system, that’s why their movement is so fluid and smooth.
“It’s a different challenge every finals [series],” Valdez went on as Creamline shoots for a title for the seventh straight conference. “After a long time of being in the Finals, it’s good that we face different challenges. We are very, very excited.
“And Brooke, welcome to the Finals.”
An interesting sidelight is the coaching battle between Sherwin Meneses of Creamline and Koji Tsuzurabara, the Petro Gazz tactician who labeled his squad, simply enough, as the “challengers.”
“I think it’s a pretty even match,” Meneses, the only coach with more than 100 wins, said when asked of the series on Thursday night. “I feel like we have the edge in terms of chemistry, but Petro Gazz is also a strong team with almost the same lineup as before. It’s definitely going to be a great Finals match.”
Van Sickle has been a defensive workhorse and a scoring machine at the same time, and the good thing about this Petro Gazz crew now is that it got this far by playing different pieces to help its star.
Chie Saet, a 40-year-old grandmother, is having a career rejuvenation before retirement, and coach Tsuzurabara is playing different players other than the ones that got them two import-spiced championships in the past.
