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Creamline ushered in the second elims playdate of the Premier Volleyball League Invitational Conference the way it closed out the opening day triple-bill late Tuesday – in straight-set fashion – as it smothered Gerflor, 25-18, 25-11, 25-12, at the Filoil EcoOil Centre in San Juan on Thursday.
Alyssa Valdez marked her 30th birthday with four points in a two-set stint after a three-point effort in her comeback game from a long layoff due to knee injury but coach Sherwin Meneses never really needed to draw much from his bemedalled skipper given the depth of their bench that proved too much for the Defenders to overcome.
And unlike in their 25-22, 25-22, 25-17 victory over the Chery Tiggo Crossovers, the Cool Smashers encountered little resistance from one of the league’s three newcomers, who simply lacked the power, chemistry and all to be ranged against the league’s most fancied squad boasting of six championships, including in this conference it ruled over King Whale Taipei last year.
The early two victories thus put Creamline in solo Group A lead and within a win from at least clinching the second semifinal slot in the compact elims phase among 11 teams with two foreign guest squads to spice up the title chase in the next phase of the conference organized by Sports Vision.
Others in Group A are PLDT, Akari and Gerflor, while F2 Logistics, Petro Gazz, Choco Mucho, Cignal, Farm Fresh and Foton make up Group B.
The defending champions then exposed their rivals’ inexperience in the next while flashing their potent offense and solid blocking, storming to leads of 8-1 and 16-6 before cruising to a 14-point romp. It was more of the same in the third as the Cool Smashers built an early 13-5 lead on a Jia de Guzman clever drop ball and Galanza’s power hit as scoring practically became automatic for Creamline after every defensive stop.
Alyssa Bertolano soared to deliver a kill off a combination play that stalled Creamline at 8-15 but the Cool Smashers took 10 of the next 14 points to essay the lopsided one-hour, 21-minute victory.
Foiled a number of times on their straight-up assaults, running attacks, combo plays and drop shots, the Defenders basically scored on the Cool Smashers’ undoing, netting 11 points off their errors.
But Creamline produced 45 attack points, 20 more than Gerflor, and the Cool Smashers controlled the net with eight blocks against the latter’s two.
After a 24-point game against the Crossovers, Carlos top-scored again with 15 points while Galanza and Domingo finished with 10 and eight points, respectively, with Meneses drawing at least one point from the rest of his 14-player rotation, save for liberos Kyle Atienza and Ella de Jesus.
Andrea Marzan and Justine Dorog scored six points apiece while Bertolano added five marks for the Defenders, who hope to gain a lot from their maiden PVL outing as they try to toughen up for the next six days before resuming their campaign against the Crossovers next Thursday in the league backed by BingoPlus, ArenaPlus, Mikasa, SMART, Rebisco, Kumu, Asics and SportRadar.
