Sisi steadily ramps up defensive game

Choco Mucho star Sisi Rondina continues to evolve and improve her craft to help her squad reach its goal of capturing a breakthrough Premier Volleyball League (PVL) title.

Rondina took advantage of a very busy 2024 to work on becoming a complete player.

Aside from being the go-to guy of the Flying Titans, the veteran open spiker also had a gig with the national team with a string of international caps for Alas Pilipinas.

There she tried sharpening her defensive skills against some of the best volleybelles in the continent.

Equipped with an improved weapon, Rondina has been contributing well for Choco Mucho with her floor defense aside from her usual explosive offense.

“Personally, I’ve been telling Thang-thang (Ponce) that, ‘Thang, I won’t depend on you that much to cover me in terms of defense and receive.’ I don’t want to burden my teammates with me as a liability on floor defense,” said Rodina, who helped Choco Mucho to a runner-finish in the previous season’s All-Filipino Conference (AFC).

Rondina’s numbers in the current 2024-25 AFC show how well the 2023 Second AFC Most Valuable Player has worked to improve her defense.

The 28-year-old Cebuana is averaging 2.35 digs per sets as Choco Mucho’s second most reliable floor defender behind main libero Ponce, who is third on the list of diggers with norms of 4.27 digs per frame.

She’s also doing well with her reception, tallying 23.91 percent efficiency.

Although the Flying Titans did struggle in the season-opening conference with an even 3-3 win-loss record to sit at the middle of the pack, Rondina is just happy to see progress in her effort to evolve as a well-rounded player.

Choco Mucho closed the year with a hard-fought 25-20, 25-21, 21-25, 25-27, 15-12, win over the Trisha Tubu-led Farm Fresh Foxies.

In her last game for the year, the league-leading scorer delivered 13 digs and 13 excellent receptions on top of her team-high 26 points.

“My mindset heading into our game is to make good passes since I’m their target. I know that’s my weakness but I tried to overcome my fear,” she said.

“I’m happy that I got this through and I just proved to myself that I can do it. I just have to be consistent and work harder.”

Rondina hopes the Flying Titans will absorb all the lessons of their previous games as they push for the second half of the preliminary round.

“Happy that we learned a lot from our games. Ending this year filled with all the learnings from those games won or lost. We know it will make us stronger. We’ll be better as a team,” she said.

Choco Mucho resumes action on 18 January against ZUS Coffee at the Philsports Arena in Pasig City.