By KRISTEL SATUMBAGA
Intense women’s volleyball action returns as the Premier Volleyball League All-Filipino Conference unfolds on Tuesday, Feb. 20, at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.
The season-opening conference will feature 12 teams, including newcomers Strong Group Athletics and Capital1 Solar Energy who will see action right away against established teams.
The SGA tossers will be tested by the Petro Gazz Angels at 4 p.m., while the Solar Spikers hope to make an early impact in their 6 p.m. tussle with the Chery Tiggo Crossovers.
Little is known about the SGA at the moment, while Capital1 will have veteran coach Roger Gorayeb as its biggest star – for the meatime.
“Hopefully, maganda yung maging simula namin,” said Gorayeb in Wednesday’s press briefing. “Yung team namin mix of experienced, mga batang players at saka height. Sana in the near future maging, title contenders pero if possible, we hope na maka-pull off kami ng surprises at miracles.”
As expected, Creamline got most of the attention as it goes for back-to-back titles.
The Cools Smashers are actually going for their 8th title but coach Sherwin Meneses and skipper Alyssa Valdez tried to downplay their chances
“Yung ibang team, talagang nagpalakas. So kami naman, step by step muna kami,” said Meneses of his squad, who has also acquired veterans Bea De Leon and Denden Revilla to sister team Choco Mucho.
“In practice naman, we’ve been working hard and looking for more strategies for the upcoming season. But I think it’s always harder to defend the crown. It’s hard to be consistent, but hopefully, we reach our goals this year,” Valdez said.
Completing this conference’s team cast are Akari, Choco Mucho, Cignal, Farm Fresh, Galeries Tower, Nxled and PLDT.
Matches will be played every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in a single elimination format, where the Top 4 teams will advance to round-robin semifinals. The battle for third place and the championship will be contested in a best-of-three format.
PVL games will be broadcasted on free-to-air on One Sports, in HD on One Sports+, and streamed on the league’s official website PVL.ph. Additionally, the games will be available live and on-demand on the Pilipinas Live app, ensuring a wide-reaching coverage for fans both locally and internationally. It will also be aired on the new free-to-air channel – RPTV.
