MANILA, Philippines – Erika Staunton was pushed into the deep water in her first-ever professional stint abroad as she was tasked to be the foreign guest player for perennial Premier Volleyball League powerhouse Creamline Cool Smashers in the ongoing 2024 PVL Reinforced Conference.
More than joining a team of talented players, Staunton went to a team that arguably has the biggest fan base in Philippine volleyball. With Staunton just 23 years old, playing overseas is itself already a tall ask for her.
But with everything that comes with being a Cool Smasher, it becomes even more challenging.
Luckily for Staunton, she has some of Philippine volleyball’s best players in her corner to help her adjust to her new life here in Manila.
After scoring a double-double in Creamline’s first win of the conference against the Farm Fresh Foxies on Saturday, Staunton said that she looked to players like Michele Gumabao and Alyssa Valdez in building her confidence.
“I think it’s great, [having Creamline’s support], especially [since] that was a pretty tight match, especially the first few sets. So just really being able to look to them for composure, they’re a championship team. They’re not unfamiliar with pressure so it’s easy to look to them to kind of take the pressure off of me a little bit,” said Staunton.
“And also, I have so many other great hitters on the team as well so it’s definitely not just me,” she added.
Staunton had a baptism of fire in her PVL debut when she was faced with a tough PLDT High Speed Hitters team last Tuesday. But after learning a bit of the ropes, she was able to adjust thanks to her teammates whom she’s slowly but surely building chemistry with.
“I think one thing that I learned pretty quickly especially after playing PLDT is the block touches. I think I was swinging too hard and too low, so today, especially it was helpful that Ate [Michele] would even say ‘Swing high, swing high, swing high’ so having my teammates kind of be there reminding me it’s definitely a team effort like even Alyssa came to me and gave me some offensive, defensive tips,” she said.
“So it’s really a team conversation and them even helping me out, like she said, I’m new here, this is my first international experience, and I just wanna make sure that I’m looking to our veterans and getting their advice, seeing what they see even if they’re on the sideline, injured. They have a great set of eyes. They have a lot of wisdom there so I wanna make sure that I’m listening to them and learning from them.”
A product out of University of Georgia, Staunton will eye more adjustment to the PVL game and hopefully impact the team more in the coming matches.
With three more assignments remaining for Pool A, she plans to enjoy the game more and in turn come out with an even more improved version of her skills.
“[I’m] kind of just locking into all those things working on like mindset before the game, just to really calm myself down. But, yeah, so there definitely were some pre-game jitters [this week],” said the wing spiker.
“But [I] also [got to do] some processes to kind of settle that and kind of change the jitters from nervousness to maybe more excitement and just embracing the process.”
Staunton and the Creamline Cool Smashers return to action on Thursday against the NXLED Chameleons at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City.