Cignal went great guns in its first few games in the PVL All-Filipino Conference which showed what the HD Spikers have learned from finishing with a silver medal in the previous tournament.

They did hit a huge bump on the road in their last game before the holiday break, which, according to team leader Vanie Gandler, gave Cignal a few more things to digest and learn from moving forward in 2025.

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“Of course, we’re not happy about the loss,” Gandler said, referring to the setback dealt by surging Petro Gazz that put the HD Spikers at No. 2 in the standings at 4-1 at the end of the year. “But we’re still happy with our standing and we’re still proud of our [what we’ve achieved]. It’s still far from over.”

And so the long holiday break might be the very thing that the HD Spikers need to regroup and refocus.

“[We have] a lot [of adjustments to do] I think our connection was a bit messy,” Gandler went on. “But we’re glad that we saw [in that loss] what we need to work on, which is a lot.”

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The Ateneo product along with defense ace Dawn Macandili-Catindig are back full time from national team duties that forced them to miss two conferences.

Import MJ Perez kept Cignal afloat in those two tournaments, and without the prolific Venezuelan and the loss of a lot of local pieces counting the veteran Jov Gonzaga and Rachel Anne Daquis, Cignal seems to be a team now built around Gandler, the veteran Ces Molina and setter Gel Cayuna.

Heavier load

Every HD Spiker will have a bigger workload from here on, even if they welcomed Buding Duremdes and rookies Camille Belaro and Caroline Santos. They looked fine at the start, until they ran into a brick wall in the Angels.

“I wouldn’t say that we’re surprised [to lose to the Angels] because Petro Gazz is a good team. We can never count them out,” Gander said. “They have really good veterans and they played really well.

“We are really hungry [to follow up on our silver finish],” Cayuna told the Inquirer in Filipino. “That’s the reason why we aren’t stopping because we were almost there [winning a title] already.”

“So what’s next after silver? That means we are near.”

“There’s a lot to look forward to in 2025. We still have six more games. We still have a lot of chances to make it to the next round,” said Gandler. “Of course, we’re looking forward to the opportunity that we have and the opportunity right now is still very big.” INQ