Brooke Van Sickle shone bright in her first PVL Finals appearance, as Petro Gazz escaped with a five-set victory over Creamline in Game 1.
Brooke Van Sickle made the most of her PVL Finals debut, powering Petro Gazz past the Creamline in a thrilling five-set victory, 25-17, 25-20, 18-25, 20-25, 15-10, in Game 1 to move within striking distance of their first-ever All-Filipino Conference crown.
Van Sickle erupted for 24 points built to go along with 14 excellent digs in the series opener on Tuesday, April 8, in front of 8,841 spectators at the Araneta Coliseum.
“Yeah, I mean, it's exactly what I expected it to be,” said Van Sickle of the electric championship atmosphere. “I know Creamline has a big fan base, so it was very loud. It was very hard to think at some points, which was nice because it drowned out all the thoughts.”
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Despite Creamline’s reverse sweep bid, Petro Gazz pulled out all the stops to inch closer to their third title in franchise history.
In the crucial fifth set, the Angels relied on MJ Phillips and Jonah Sabete to deliver back-to-back victories over the Cool Smashers.
[ALSO READ: PVL: Brooke Van Sickle grateful for bond with MJ Phillips--‘She keeps me level-headed’]
But despite the Game 1 win, the Filipino-Hawaiian spiker emphasized the importance of staying composed and focused with the title still far from secure.
“This win doesn't matter. It's still best two out of three,” Van Sickle expressed. “As soon as you start thinking, ‘oh, championship,’ it's going to get taken away. So, we have to stay grounded and present.”
“We have to stay grounded and present and continue to focus. Like, even though we won, there's a lot of things we need to work on,” she added.
Van Sickle, who is gunning for her first major pro title, acknowledged the need for Petro Gazz to clean up its game heading into Game 2 on Thursday, April 10 with Creamline expected to give it their all to force a winner-take-all match.
“I'm expecting [on] Thursday, Creamline is going to come out and play their best volleyball possible and we have to be ready as a team. And we can't let how the third set went. We can't be low energy, back off because this is the team, you can't do that with them,” said Van Sickle.