Narrative

Volleyball Nightmare

I am standing here 6'0" next to a 6'7" giant as we are flipping the golden coin to see who gets to serve first. The ref, short and stout, said, "Call it in the air", so I quickly yelled "Heads!" I thought to myself “Damn it I should have went with tails." 

I run back to my team and they looked at me for the good news that we have serve against these monsters. I only had bad news. As we all think about how this game is going to end, my coach said something that he doesn’t usually say. He said, "Don't worry about winning, just go out there and show them you are not going to roll over." I was surprised at this because he has always told us he wants us to win every game. Now I know we are going to get creamed. 

During warm ups, we were watching them hit the ball so hard that I was afraid that my arms were going to break from trying to pass the ball. Our ranking in the tournament was 41 out of 48 and the team we were playing was ranked 9th. 

This game was not going to end well.

The first whistle blew as the game started. The serve came at me like a bullet, and I couldn't believe how hard it hit my arms and how bad it hurt to pass the ball. But I managed to make the pass decent enough that we were able to get it over. I was feeling pretty good about myself until the ball was coming back and nailed me right in the left ear. I felt the burning sensation tingle in my ear. I felt as if I was going deaf. My coach comes over to me and asked “Are you all right?", "Can you still play?" I answered "yes" reluctantly. My ear was throbbing in pain and I couldn't hear. But I wanted to play and prove myself to everyone that I am just as good as the guys on the other side of that net. 

I am now out for blood. My attitude changed dramatically. I used this anger, and put it into my hitting. I was hitting as hard as I could against these guys, but they just kept passing them like it was nothing. This was very, very frustrating to be helpless and not know what to do

We lost the first game 12-25. 

The second game was much better. We knew the challenge that we are up against. As the second game began, my coach pulls me a side and says to me, "You know, power isn't always the best way to beat a team. You need to find a weakness and keep attacking that." As I got on the court I replay the last game in my head quickly and couldn't find a weakness.

The first whistle blows and we have serve. And I am that lucky person who gets to start out serving. So I give a blonde kid my best serve and they pass it up like cake. Again. But we got lucky and they hit it into the net. So that's one point for us. Now I think to myself, "Don't serve it to that guy." So then I served it to a brown haired kid. And what happens next shocks me and gets the crowd going. I got the first ace of the game! I hear my coach’s words in my head, "Find the weakness." So I serve again at the same kid. This time he gets the ball up but it's not pretty. They manage to get the ball over onto my side and my team mate hits it into the net. So we lost the point.

Now the game continues on, and we are still getting beat. My ace is now in the past and seems to not have had an effect on the game at all. What comes next is my favorite, and what I remember most. The tallest kid on their team was 6" 8" and he went up to hit. I dive for that ball to try to save it. My body hits the ground and I put one arm out to the ball. It pops up and flies back over to the other side of the net. The team was already celebrating that they didn't notice the ball coming back at them. We get the point. I went to get up and I just have this sharp shooting pain go through my leg. I look down and my knee is bleeding and starting to swell. The cold blood was running down my leg and staining my white socks. But I was alright with it all because this was the turning point for my team and the game. We end up beating this team 27-25.

The next game was really intense and we tried our hardest to beat this team because we knew we were capable and wanted to say we beat this team. After a long battle, we lost 19-25. 

My coach comes up to all of us and says, "That was the best we have ever played," and he pats me on the back. 

I knew I played very well, and was excited to see what was to come from the rest of the tournament.