Davison needs High Speed Hitters support 

Top winger Savi Davison has been doing all the heavy lifting for PLDT in the 2024-25 Premier Volleyball League (PVL) All-Filipino Conference.

Her consistent stellar performance has anchored the High Speed Hitters’ three-game win start in the season-opening tournament.

However, her being the focal point on offense also exposed PLDT’s Achilles heel: The High Speed Hitters are too Davison-centric.

Without consistent support, Davison could only do so much as the club’s promising start turned south after a downward spiral, losing back-to-back to Chery Tiggo and Petro Gazz before the holiday break.

The Filipino-Canadian open spiker is averaging 23.8 points per game after five outings. She also leads the league in attack efficiency with 41.20 percent success rate.

Opposite hitter Erika Santos is averaging 12.2 markers while winger Fiola Ceballos norms with 8.2 markers per outing. However, the two were barely felt in PLDT’s stinging losses.

“Even before, we already defined Savi’s role of producing those number of points. But our struggle numbers-wise is that the other players could keep up with the expected support,” High Speed Hitters head coach Rald Ricafort said.

In PLDT’s 25-12, 14-25, 22-25, 20-25, loss to Petro Gazz, Davison dropped 28 points. Ceballos and Santos scored only eight each while the rest of the squad combined for just 12 markers.  

“She got 28 but the other two that we expected to come up with double digits scored eight each. In that alone we’re disadvantaged compared to Petro Gazz who had Brooke (Van Sickle) scoring in 20s backed by good games from Myla (Pablo) and Jonah (Sabete) offense-wise — that spelled the difference,” Ricafort added.

Davison, however, is not the one to point the finger at someone.

“It’s not really my place to call on anybody or pick anybody out. That’s not my job. My job is to show up and produce and, you know, the team in any way possible, whether that’s a leadership role, whether that’s performance role, whatever that is. That’s all I can do, right?” she said.

Holding a 3-2 win-loss record, PLDT is still in a good position in the standings.

“I just want us to win so badly. You know, I just want us to be where we belong and just show other people that, you know, we can actually compete… So it’s not the end yet. We’ll see,” Davison added.

But the road in the preliminary round gets even bumpier for PLDT when action resumes in January 2025.

The High Speed Hitters crosses paths with Akari on 18 January in their first meeting following a controversial semifinal match in the 2024 Reinforced Conference.   

Ricafort sees that game as a test of character for his team.

“We always tell them that especially in an All-Filipino Conference, the three wings will be the big producers. If not everyone is on the same page stats-wise, then we’ll have the same (losing) results,” he said.