BACARRA, Ilocos Norte — Petro Gazz overpowered a Maddie Madayag-less Choco Mucho side, 25-20, 25-18, 25-21, Thursday to clinch third place in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) Open Conference at the PCV Socio-Civic & Cultural Center here.
The Angels, who took Game One, 25-21, 25-15, 22-25, 25-20, Wednesday, completed a two-game sweep of the Flying Titans.
“Worth it lahat ng sakripisyo aqnd yung mga paghihirap ng mga players or as a team doon sa bubble training naming going here tapos yung one month talaga nandito kami iba yung experience talaga,” said Petro Gazz coach Arnold Laniog. “Emotionally, macha-challenge ka mentally.”
Choco Mucho opted to rely fully on its bench to rest its weary starters, who lost Madayag to left knee injury she sustained in the middle of the fourth set of the series opener.
At press time, no official diagnosis yet as to what injury Madayag, who underwent and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) testing at the Mariano Marcos Memorial Medical Center in Batac, suffered.
The ploy to start Choco Mucho’s second stringers — Caitlyn Viray, Arianna May Angustia, Dancel Dusaran, Shannen Palec, Jamie Lavitoria and Kassandra Gequillana — paid off at the start as Petro Gazz was taken aback by the move a bit as the former zoomed to an 18-14 lead.
But Myla Pablo restored order and willed her team back to snatch the opening set and was never really threatened the rest of the way.
Down 0-2 and trailing by a mile in the third set, the Flying Titans tried to salvage the match as they sent in starter setter Deanna Wong and spiker Pauline Gaston late in the third set but the Angels’ lead was just too insurmountable to overcome.
Pablo ended up leading all scorers with 16 points including 14 on kills.