Sydnee Barnes was a senior at Ridgeway High and captain of the volleyball team. This was her team’s year, they had gone undefeated throughout district and the playoffs and now they were at the state tournament. Her team had some of the best players in the state and all of the starters were going to college to continue their athletic career. Sydnee was 5’7” and the shortest girl on her team, but she could set a perfect ball off of any pass she received. For the past 3 years she had been the starting varsity setter and she had played all the way around in a 5-1 rotation which means she never hit, and that worked just fine because it earned her a spot on the ‘Fighting Texas Aggie’ volleyball team. Today was the day that her team would compete for the gold. Yesterday they had beaten Crawford soundly in 3 games and advanced on to today to play Holiday in the championship.
GAME 1: Sydnee’s team lost the coin toss and received the serve, but won 25-15
GAME 2: The Lady Eagles won with a close score of 26-24.
GAME 3: “UUUUUPPPPPPP” could be heard for miles around as the Lady Eagles began their communication rituals.
“You go! You go Jamie!”
“Hey Syd you go babe!”
As always Jamie, their Libero, had passed a perfect 3 option pass to which Sydnee gracefully placed into the hands of their right side, Ashley, who skillfully avoided the block and slammed the ball on the ground. Point Eagles.
As Sydnee made her way back to the line to serve she looked to her coach who showed 3 fingers meaning serve to the short middle position. “Easy,” she thought to herself, she had been working on this spot all year and nearly perfected it.
TWEEEEETTTTTTT!!!!!!
SLAP, the ball flew high into the air and dropped just in front of the ten-foot line and hit the floor without a movement from the other team’s defense.
“AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! OOOOO!!!!!!!! AYEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!” As her team met in the middle, after her fifth ace, she looked at the other team’s defense and noticed that they had pulled their Libero forward and shifted the others into a triangle with the point facing her.
“Wow that was dumb, they left the six wide open…oh well their loss.” She said to her teammates who responded with: “Kill them with it!”
She walked back to the line thinking to herself “I’ve got this, this ball is hitting the ground without them even knowing its over the net.” As she served the ball she turned her hand slightly to the right which caused the ball to sail over the net and bounce off of the waiting platform of the left back defensive player. The ball was of course a perfect pass and was set up to their middle, who slammed the ball straight into the Lady Eagle’s impenetrable wall, and lost the point. She jumped to the middle to celebrate with her team, but as she looked around she saw only 5 players…where was Ashley. She looked over toward the net where Ashley was sitting on the ground clutching her ankle.
“Ashley! What happened?” her coach screamed from the bench “TIME OUT!”
As the whistle sounded to begin the time out her coach ram out on the court to where Ashley was whimpering and sitting down. “Do you know what you did?”
“I rolled it coming down off of the block on Sammy’s foot, I got to close to her when I moved to the middle…Coach I can’t move it.” Ashley whispered.
“Syd you’re going to have to play right-side, I know you can do it and you where played that position all throughout middle school and during your freshman year. Candice you are going to have to set back row.”
“Coach I am 5’7” tall I am a midget compared to everyone else out here!”
“Yes but you have an 11” vertical which puts you on an even playing field with them. You can do it, I believe that you can, now its your turn. Alright break!”
As Sydnee walked onto the court all she could think of was the fact that she was going to have to play right-side in the next rotation, and how she was going to be the reason that her team lost the third game and would probably lose the next two. She couldn’t think that way though. She was the leader of this team and she had to prove that she was able to move around and be a “clutch-player”.
“Alright ladies we are going to have to work harder and be able to hit things that aren’t going to be where they normally are. This isn’t going to be easy but we can do it…let’s prove to everyone that we can do this with or without our star right-side.” As the ball was served into play it was directed towards their Libero who passed the ball to their setter who dumped the ball over the net and onto the court where Ashley normally would have been to pick it up, but the first time sophomore Candice was not. “Candice! You have to pick those up! Lets go you got it!”
As the other team served Sydnee made a pact that the ball was not going to be hitting the floor again, and it didn’t she moved her feet to the passed ball and set it without even thinking to her awaiting out-side. Point Eagles.
With the score being 23-14 the eagles where ahead and all the had to do was win the next 2 points and the championship was theirs. The ball was received, shanked, sent back over with a pass and was easily blocked by Sydnee and Megan, the middle hitter, 24-14. The serve was repeated and the ball was received and soared over the net in an over pass. Candice was able to get to the ball and set it perfectly…to her! “Why would she do that? She had Megan wide open! Oh well let just see what happens.” She jumped up and swung at the ball. It soared through the blockers hands and landed in the middle of Holidays court. She had done it! They had won!
As her coach hung the gold medal around her neck all she could think about was how she stepped up and was able to compete with the “big dogs” when she was the size of a chihuahua.