Van Sickle regains fiery form
Nxled star Brooke Van Sickle is back in her prime form following a long layoff due to a minor shoulder injury.
Out of commission for almost half a year, the former Season Most Valuable Player (MVP) reminded everyone of her caliber with impressive performances in her return to the Premier Volleyball League (PVL).
The Filipino-American winger powered the Chameleons to back-to-back victories over title contenders in the league’s Season 10 All-Filipino Conference Siklab series.
Van Sickle dropped 11 points and eight digs in Nxled’s stunning 25-16, 25-20, 25-18 sweep of stacked PLDT last Tuesday.
She followed it up with a much more explosive outing of 20 points on 14 attacks and six kill blocks while adding 16 excellent digs and nine excellent receptions in the Chameleons’ 25-19, 25-17, 23-25, 20-25, 15-12, victory over Farm Fresh on Saturday.
Sidelined in the PVL On Tour and Invitational Conference, the three-time league Conference MVP showed little rust and her impressive showings earned her the unanimous recognition as the PVL Press Corps Player of the Week for 10 to 17 October.
“I think as PVL continues with its years I do think that the competition is getting significantly harder. Teams, I mean, now there are only nine. So, I think teams are more condensed and they have better players, more talent, especially with the draft coming in,” Van Sickle said.
She edged teammate Gel Cayuna, Creamline’s Jema Galanza and Jia Morado-De Guzman, Choco Mucho’s Eya Laure and Sisi Rondina-Rosales, Farm Fresh’s Mylene Paat-Rezanova, and Capital1’s Bella Belen, who erupted for a career-high 35 points in a five-set win over Akari, for the weekly honor voted on by print and online reporters covering the league.
“Yeah, it’s really good to be back. I mean, no athlete likes to be injured, right? So, during the time, I mean, it was really tough at moments, but I had the support of my coaching staff and our teammates, too, and management and ownership,” Van Sickle said.
As the Sports Vision-organized league celebrates its 10th year, Van Sickle expects the competition to be even tougher as the conference progresses but vowed to keep improving as she looks to help Nxled build on its breakthrough run to the Invitational Conference finals, which the Chameleons reached without her.
“A lot of teams have their rosters built. So I think it’s gonna definitely be very hard and very unpredictable. As we’ve already seen, there’s already been a lot of five-setters. So, as I said, it’s gonna be a dogfight for everybody and be very unpredictable, in my opinion,” Van Sickle said.
Van Sickle and the Chameleons will look to extend their unbeaten start to three games when they take on winless Galeries Tower on Thursday at the Mall of Asia Arena.