The Petro Gazz Angels are determined to come back stronger in the 2024-2025 PVL All-Filipino Conference after a rough ending to the previous season.
Two months removed from a turbulent end to their 2024 PVL season, the Petro Gazz Angels are more than ready to make up for lost ground in the 2024-2025 All-Filipino Conference.
Fresh off their All-Filipino opening win against the Choco Mucho Flying Titans, Fil-Am spiker Brooke Van Sickle admitted that their 2024 Reinforced Conference run is now fuel for the Angels to prove a point in the revamped All-Filipino wars.
“I would say so, yeah,” Van Sickle reflected after their four-set win on Saturday. “Obviously last conference wasn’t our best performance. It’s not fun losing for everyone. It sucks to lose, but I feel like as a team we were able to learn a lot of lessons.
“When you’re in that position, you have to really reflect and just think about what happened, what needs to be done and everything. We had multiple talks as a team, just trying to figure it out and get that groove back. Get that chemistry and everything, I think it went very well.”
You may recall that Petro Gazz struggled throughout the Reinforced Conference, finishing in sixth place after an injury bug bit the team hard during the elimination rounds. It was a stark contrast to their 2024 All-Filipino run, where the Angels finished in third under a debuting Van Sickle and new head coach Koji Tsuzurabara.
Given this, part of Petro Gazz’s offseason for the 2024-2025 season was unpacking all the lessons they learned in that adversity-filled run last July to August.
“It just happens…We can’t go into the conference expecting to be like ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to get number one without people pushing back’. It is what it is, and hats off to everyone. Even Creamline, they got the Grand Slam, that’s awesome. It’s good competition really and all we have to do is be able to learn from what happened and just try to move on…We can learn from it, but we have to ultimately just look forward,” reflected the Hilo, Hawaii native.
Like most teams, Petro Gazz is fielding an intact core for the 2024-2025 All-Filipino Conference which includes Van Sickle, team captain Remy Palma, and other mainstays Jonah Sabete, Aiza-Maizo Pontillas, and Djanel Cheng among others.
Tzuzurabara also remains at the helm along with an assistant coaching staff bannered by former F2 Logistics star Cha Cruz-Behag and new additions such as Brian Esquivel and Jay Chua.
With a long conference ahead of them, Van Sickle emphasized the need to take it one game at a time for the All-Filipino wars. Rival teams are also still ironing out the kinks, and anything can still happen within the six-month timeframe.
Given last season’s struggles, health will be another priority for Petro Gazz in this longer-than-usual format.
“I feel like the main one for everyone is just to stay healthy. It’s a long season and things happen, but we’ll try our hardest to keep the body recovered. I feel like that’s probably the biggest key really,” Van Sickle said.
Petro Gazz returns to action on November 16 at the Ynares Center in Antipolo against Creamline, followed by the Rachel Anne Daquis-led Farm Fresh Foxies on November 23 at the Candon City Arena in Ilocos Sur.
The Angels will then have a tough slate to close out 2024 as they face the Akari Chargers on December 5, the PLDT High Speed Hitters on December 10, and the Cignal HD Spikers on December 14.
“Well, [we want to defeat] everyone, really. I feel like as a team, we can’t look across the net and be like ‘Oh, it’s this team. Okay then, we’re not going to [play seriously]…You know, we can’t back down. So we got to come out with the same energy, same fire for everyone,” said Van Sickle.
Banner image courtesy of the Premier Volleyball League.