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.   

My best friend’s name is Lauren. She is 16 years old and has long mousey brown hair. I am taller than her by a good 2 inches, but she is older than me by a good 2 weeks. Lauren and I have known each other since I was born, and have been best friends since we were able to understand what the words “best friends” meant. I can always count on her to have my back, but if i were going to have to be stuck on an island with someone I wouldn’t want to be stuck with her. My reasons for this would be the fact that she can get on my last nerve and i would probably turn to cannibalism to make the bickering end. Aside from being so close that we fight like sisters and are way too mean to each other way too often, she is the person who’s opinion I care most about, aside from God’s, my parent’s, my sister’s, my boyfriend’s, my other friend’s, my dog’s…okay so maybe her opinion isn’t the highest, but I do care what she thinks. Lauren and I are interested in somewhat of the same things, like we both love volleyball…and that’s where the similarities stop. Like for instance…she lifts weights for fun and I lift them for punishment. I love to run and she would rather drop a 50lbs weight on her toes…(her words not mine.) I also love to shop and she hates to shop. She likes to shower for 30 minutes and I like to take a good 10. Even though we have almost nothing in common we have everything in common because we are friends and we do the things that the other loves to indulge them. Just like love, a friendship only works if you put in the effort to create it, and that is just what we have done.

I have a lot of things that are dear to me in my life, but my most prized possession would have to be the little black rectangle that is 7.44″ x 4.72″ x 0.45″. It has a little 7″ screen, and it holds my life. My most prized possession is my Kindle Fire HD by Amazon. The reason why it is my most prized possession is not because it is an electronic and expensive, but because it has my Pintrest, all of my favorite books, my Dragon Vale account, and most importantly it has written among its codes my glorious Netflix account. Now you may be thinking: Why do you hold that so dear to you, aren’t there like actual devices that can perform each of those individual operations, and aren’t there like actual books you can hold? Well to answer you my dear reader, I would have to say that the reason why i like this particular device is because i still have complete access to my cell phone while having all of the glories that my Kindle offers me. To say in the least, I might actually be in love with it. I normally use this item when I am on vacation and don’t have access to a computer or Netflix account. My Kindle goes everywhere with me when it is charged and when its dead it has a spa day of relaxation on its charger. However normally it can go a week without being charged, so I charge it on Sundays. I value my Kindle so much that it has even made my top 5 list of things I would save from a fire.

In my backyard there are many things to do. Things such as swimming, playing tether-ball, jumping on my trampoline, shooting my bow, swinging on the hammock, and gardening. There is one specific time that I can remember when all of my friends came over and we hung out and jumped on my trampoline like we were all 5 years old again. We played tag, and crack-the-egg, and we just sat and talked for at least 2 hours. After we all got tired of being outside, the had all had our fair share of mosquito bites and the tether-ball had hit us all in the face at least once (but really it was because we could no longer see the hand in front of our face) we all went inside and watched a movie. Now there was a large debate about what kind of movie to watch, but the 4 girls sent the guys into the other room because we were going to choose the movie and we were not going to watch a horror movie or an action movie that we would get bored with quickly. After a much needed debate about this life-changing decision we had come to the agreement to make them suffer for eating all of my fruit-snacks, and we were going to watch the chick-flick about a mermaid searching for love on land. No it was not the red headed mermaid but the blonde with the aquamarine high-lights…Aquamarine. No of course there was mumbling and grumbling from the guys, but since they had no better option we all decided to watch it. (Plus, I think they thought that the mermaid was hot.)