By ADRIAN STEWART CO

The Creamline Cool Smashers leaned on Diana Carlos’ career-game as they defeated the Akari Power Chargers, 25-22, 21-25, 25-22, 25-19, in the PVL 1st All-Filipino Conference at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City on Thursday night, February 29.

The three-time PVL Most Valuable Player finished with a career-high of 31 points, including 30 attacks (on 55.5 percent efficiency) to be named Player of the Game for the Cool Smashers.

“Natutuwa ako kasi napakaganda ng laro at sakto lang talaga na ‘yung situation na ganun. So masaya lang ako na pinag-seserbisyuhan si coach Sherwin [Meneses],” Carlos said.

New recruits Bea de Leon and Denden Lazaro-Revilla also made their presence felt for the defending champion Cool Smashers as they moved to a share of top spot with a 2-0 win-loss slate.

“Overall, maganda naman ‘yung naging performance ng team, pero ang importante is maging ready kami sa lahat ng situation,” Cool Smashers head coach Meneses said.

“Medyo dikitan ‘yung game and nakapaglaro na din ‘yung mga baguhan namin. Hopefully, mas magkaroon ng opportunity for them to play inside the court, step by step lang ng konti,” he added.

In the first game, the Farm Fresh Foxies bounced back from their season-opener defeat with a dominant 25-16, 25-17, 25-16 victory over the Capital1 Solar Energy Power Spikers.

Player of the Game Chinnie Arroyo, who scored 11 points, emphasized that correcting their mistakes from the previous four-set defeat to the Cool Smashers was crucial for their bounce-back victory.

“In our first game, we had a lot of errors. We just applied corrections to address the deficiencies in this game,” Arroyo, who signed up with the Foxies following the disbandment of the F2 Logistics Cargo Movers, said.

Trisha Tubu spearheaded the Farm Fresh team with 15 points, while Kate Santiago added six markers.

Alyssa Bertolano and Sofia Ildefonso chipped in five points each as they improved to a 1-1 record under the guidance of Coach Jerry Yee./ASC, WDJ