Cool Smashers clobber Highrisers, share lead with idle Flying Titans
CREAMLINE showed off its dominance with a commanding 25-22, 25-17, 25-15 victory over Galeries Tower to join sister team Choco Mucho at the top of the standings in the Premier Volleyball League All-filipino Conference at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City Thursday.
Tots Carlos slowed down from a career-high 31-point blast against the Akari Chargers last weekend with a nine-point output, but with solid performances from Michele Gumabao, Lorie Bernardo and
Bea de Leon, the Cool Smashers didn’t solely rely on the former University of the Philippines standout for another explosive display of hitting prowess.
Gumabao came off the bench to fire 10 points, while Bernardo shone in the middle with six points and de Leon added five points, both in twoset stints.
Alyssa Valdez added eight points for the Cool Smashers, who also drew a pair of five-point outputs from Bernadeth Pons and Jema Galanza and four points from Rose Vargas.
Kyle Negrito took the game’s best honors with an 18-excellent set performance while emphasizing the challenging nature of the competition.
“There are no easy teams in the league. Against Galeries, we had to maintain focus on our system and execute our plays,” said Negrito, who also finished with two points.
The one-hour and 18-minute victory marked Creamline’s third consecutive win, keeping it in step with Choco Mucho.
The win also primed up the Cool Smashers for a challenging encounter against the formidable Chery Tiggo Crossovers on March 16 at the Sta. Rosa Sports Complex in Laguna.
“Based on their performance, everything went okay,” said Meneses, whose wards dominated all the scoring skills—spikes (45-32), blocks (7-2) and serves (6-1).
“We’re very happy with our performance and we’re very proud of everyone,” Valdez said.
Galeries Tower, in contrast, suffered its third straight defeat in the season-opening conference of the league organized by Sports Vision.
Ysas Jimenez shone for Galeries with 11 points while Joy Doromal came up with nine markers. But lack of support from teammates, including Grazielle Bombita, Dimdim Pacres, Mary Ann Esguerra and Andrea Marzan, hindered their efforts.
The Highrisers actually came out strong in the third frame, and led, 10-7.
But the Cool Smashers countered and took four of the next five points to draw level at 11 and wrested control on a Galanza ace in the ensuing play and rolled to the victory on a decisive 13-4 closing run.
Despite the expected three-set romp, the Cool Smashers faced a momentary challenge in the opening frame, squandering a commanding 20-13 bulge with a series of errors, including back-to-back mishits from Carlos, enabling the Highrisers to pull within 22-24.
But the Cool Smashers regrouped and Negrito’s strategic play to Vargas secured the set.
Meneses made effective substitutions in the next, inserting de Leon and Pons into the rotation and the defending champions responded emphatically by racing to a 14-6 lead and maintaining control throughout the set.
Jimenez, determined to keep the Highrisers in the game, scored on another off-the-block hit, to halt the Cool Smashers’ run, but the latter re-imposed their will and cruised to another set-win aided by Carlota Hernandez’s attack error.