Lindsey Vander Weide was generous in showering praises on her teammates especially setter Djanel Cheng for her great playmaking that led to the American import’s career milestone and more importantly pushed Petro Gazz closer to a title repeat in the Premier Volleyball League Reinforced Conference.
Vander Weide dropped a personal-best 34 points to lead the Angels to a pivotal 25-21, 27-25, 37-35, victory over Cignal to claim Game 1 of the best-of-three finals of the season-ending tournament on Thursday at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.
Petro Gazz turned to the reinforcement at crunch time, with Cheng feeding the power-hitter with good looks in the closing stretch of the third set as she scored the timely hits that completed the sweep.
“Yeah, the whole game felt great. My energy with Cheng was excellent today, her setting was superb today so it was easy to put balls away,” Vander Weide said of Cheng.
The playmaker, who was one of the few remaining Angels core that won the 2019 Reinforced Conference crown over favored Creamline before the tournament was shelved for two years Covid-19, tallied 18 excellent sets and got two points.
Her tosses to Vander Weide in the extended third frame keyed in the hard-earned victory that positioned Petro Gazz on the brink of proving that its first title in the PVL was no fluke.
“She was putting me in the perfect position, it felt great,” Vander Weide, who hammered 31 kills on 53 attempts with 2 kill blocks and an ace, said.
In a straight sets result that felt and looked like a contest of more than three frames, Vander Weide also credited the rest of the Angels’ local crew for holding ground against the determined HD Spikers.
“Normally, I’m stressed in games when we’re super close in the end like the 20s,” Vander Weide said.
The Angels had eight chances at match point that the HD Spikers saved. Petro Gazz also saved four set points with the last coming off a Vander Weide hit that knotted the frame at 35.
She then smashed back-to-back hits to finally end the 45-minute set and put the game away.
“This game, we were so locked in, it didn’t matter who was up, we were gonna fight back and score and we did that in the second set, and the third set and that was the most impressive thing for me. How we held up in those moments,” Vander Weide said.
The Angels can wrap up the series on Tuesday at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.
“(We’ll have) the same mindset that we’ve had the past few games. We’re really focused right now, we’ve been playing really well so we just have to stay consistent and keep the same energy that we have,” Vander Weide vowed.
