Games Sunday
1 p.m. – BaliPure vs Choco Mucho
4 p.m. – Perlas vs Petro Gazz
7 p.m. – Chery Tiggo vs Creamline
Ilocos Norte—The Premier Volleyball League gears up for its first triple-bill in a compact five-week schedule on Sunday, spiced up by the Perlas Spikers’ debut in the country’s first pro volley tournament and capped by the Creamline-Chery Tiggo faceoff in the Open Conference at the PCV Socio-Civic Cultural Center in Bacarra here.
It took one full week before the Spikers could strut their wares and that only made them hungrier and keener, as they go up against the Petro Gazz Angels in their 4 p.m. clash, tipped to be fierce and tight.
BaliPure and Choco Mucho kick off the busy day at 1 p.m. while the Cool Smashers and the Crossovers collide at 7 p.m. in a duel of teams expected to dispute two of the four berths in the crossover semifinals.
Games are telecast live on One Sports (Free to Air), and One Sports+ (Pay TV) with both channels available for linear streaming on Cignal Play and on gigafest.smart with replays on www.pvl.ph.
The league, which takes a break today (Saturday), originally set a three-game offering in its inaugurals last week but the organizing Sports Vision moved the Perlas-Cignal HD match to a later date after a member of the former team’s delegation yielded a positive result days before the opening.
After undergoing quarantine, all Perlas members yielded negative RT-PCR test results, paving the way for the Spikers’ much-awaited stint and their clash with the Angels out to improve on their 1-1 card.
While the BaliPure-Choco Mucho duel also provides an intriguing subplot, focus will be on the Creamline-Chery Tiggo encounter after the two teams swept their first two matches in contrasting fashions.
But while the Cool Smashers were able to survive a five-set scare from Black Mamba Army and extend their win run to three, the Crossovers saw their two-game roll end in an ambush by the fired-up BaliPure Water Defenders, who snatched a thriller of a five-setter last Thursday, the first two matches that went the distance in the first week of elims.
Those contrasting results also showed the parity in the league with no team appearing to hold a distinct advantage over the other, guaranteeing slam-bang action and a wide-open race in the single round elims.
The league has also scheduled three triple-bills on July 30, Aug. 1 and Aug. 6.