It Will Be Hell

Y’all have heard of that thing recovering addicts get called withdrawals right? So it turns out that if an athlete gets used to a certain routine, you can get a similar outcome. Okay, maybe not everyone has this but I definitely do, and it sucks! Now this wouldn’t be a problem if my club owned it’s own gym. But we don’t. So since we have to deal with the parent teacher conferences at the school we normally use for practice is in use… Which means we don’t have half of our practices this week! I mean what is that?!

That’s bullshit, that’s what that is! (Pardon my French, but I’m sure you can understand my frustration here.)

Elevate logo on the back of one of my jackets

Back to my point, withdrawals from lack of exercise. You might have absolutely no idea what I mean, I’m talking about: cramps in muscles that are expecting a workout, decreased appetite, and the worst in my opinion, laziness. When there’s not something that you are required to do, you don’t want to do anything at all. In many cases if I don’t go to practice, I will procrastinate on my homework by watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I find myself slugging around with the most physical activity being my thumbs either texting or pathetically using the Xbox controller, neither ever requiring more than my wrists to move. As you can probably guess, it’s pretty sad.

To make matters worse, after next week, my club is off for Christmas break. Now most of you don’t know my family, (I hope) but we like to eat. I mean we REALLY like to eat, which is why we work out so much. So that’s how I’ll be spending the break: food, Netflix, food, hopefully play a bit, and more food. NOT a good recipe without a guaranteed practice in case any of you were wondering. My advice? Don’t follow my examples, and if you must… Know when you go back, it will be Hell.

You've Gotta Want It

Okay FINALLY club season has started, because I am dying for game days again. There’s just a couple little problems. For starters, we’re kinda behind the power curve at the moment so we have to work our asses off to catch up; to make that worse, we have a lot of first-years in my age group. Now I’m all in for anyone giving it a shot, but this sport is way harder than it looks and you have to give 100% all the time. You can't slack off and not pay attention until we get to play, conditioning and drills are really important. To quote my coach, Tobin, “We’re never gonna be the biggest in the gym. That’s why we’ve gotta be the best at all the little stuff. Our passing, setting, hitting, serves. We’ve gotta have it all.”

Now everyone who’s played on Elevate for at least a season knows that this is true. Us Vets as we’re sometimes called, do our best to be our best and try to get that mindset into the Rookies as well. However, not all of them will get the message the first time, there will always a few that walk in expecting to be the next USA team without practice. This time though… Yikes.

My coach during the summer season

So some friends and I been with elevate for what will be two or three years now, but none of us have ever seen Tobin blow up this way before. Of course there were a few girls that weren’t paying attention during a drill, it wasn’t hard but some focus was required for it to work, which is the exact opposite of what was happening. A freeball, (easy, underhand tossed) would be tossed at us and all we had to do was pass it, set it and roll shot it (gentle, well received hits) to the other side six times consecutively, then we could start attacking (hard, difficult to return hits). It was a pretty simple drill, or it would be if everyone did their part. 

Unfortunately we never got to the point where we could attack. We did however do six sets of suicides in less than twenty minutes, incorporating: push-ups, crunches, dives (running to a graceful slide as far as you can across the floor). Which would’t be too bad if we were allowed to catch our breath afterward instead of returning to the drill for people to yet again stop paying attention.

As you can guess, we were all getting fed up with this, but none more than my coach. After about three rounds of this he lost it, I’ve never seen him get so mad at players. Understandably though, everyone was suffering because a few people could’t get their act together. Tobin doesn’t have a lot of rules: come ready to play, give it your everything, clean up after yourself, be there for your teammates, and most importantly, don’t waste anybody’s time. You’ve gotta want it.

This Is Halloween

Okay y’all, I realize I’m a bit late on that Halloween blog post thing, but you can bet your sweet ass I’m still going to write one! You see, it’s my FAVORITE holiday season and yes I still consider it a holiday even though I’m fifteen… Don’t judge me. Now I could ramble off to y’all a million reasons why I love this one day so much but I’m sure you’d rather here about the crazy and absolutely hilarious night I had on Friday.

It was a typical white day at our school, I ended with my last class at high school building then walked back to meet up with my friends one more time and catch my bus. After a rather uneventful trip home I decided to scrap the entire costume I had previously chosen and grabbed an old pair of black jeans, my scuffed up combat boots, and a gray t-shirt. I was going off of my friend Mikal’s idea since we sort of did a couples costume for non-couples. I scrambled through all of my Halloween makeup and small props such as teeth until I could finally find the fake blood. I ran outside to jazz up my shirt and arms with battle blood with the fifteen minutes I had left before heading up to Main Street with a few friends. Being that the costume Mikal and I required a special accessory that took a little while to ship, my boyfriend decided not to join us in the Supernatural crossroads demon idea but to go as the human counterpart, a hunter.

The $50 accessory for my costume
If anyone is interested in purchasing these contacts they are from WickedEyez 

I’d say we had a pretty good time roaming around on Main Street, getting overpriced yet amazing pasta and just walking around to pass the time. We spent a few, meaning five, hours doing this until it began to get dark around us. As night feel our small group of Dillon, Mikal, Hunter, Hali and myself made our way towards the bottom of the street. The music got louder and the street had less and less people the further down we got. Once at the bottom we sat on a stone wall across from the restaurant that had the music. We were sitting there no more than ten minutes dancing to the music and playing What Are The Odds (an immature game where guessing the same number often leads to you having to do whatever humiliating task your friends have decided on). Then a tall, probably mid-twenty year old guy in a chicken suit comes stumbling drunk over to us from the bar up the street. Which may have been the reason he thought it would be a good idea to take on the mechanical bull across the street. He struggled to make it over to the bull, then at long last climbed onto it and called to the operator,. He spun four or five times at a low difficulty and then let go and flew to the edge of the area leaving us laughing for a solid five minutes. We were left with some of the best memories from the day and ended the night with the quote from a mutualistic favorite move, “This Is Halloween.”

Look Forward to Club

October 21... My very last freshmen practice (I remember it like it was yesterday... Oh right, it was), I found myself thinking about August 21, my very first game of the season. Hard to believe that was two months ago, wow so much has happened since then. I can hardly remember that game to be honest, I mean I know that it was a home game where we played Tooele. The entire football team showed up to cheer us on, basketball supported us from the open weight room upstairs, and our cheerleaders were there. My parents, both brothers, sister-in-law, niece and Dillon were all there as well, which didm’t always get to happen during the rest of the season. At that time I didn’t have a starting position so I was thankful and eager (probably a bit overeager), to get whatever playing time I did.

But like I said, a lot has changed since then. I learned a whole new position, improved greatly on what I already knew, and gained a better relationship with my teammates than I expected. By the end of this season I had a starter position as a DS or Defense Specialist, which basically means I’m a good passer and they want me back row with the libero to return down balls and serves. That seems easy enough right? Wrong! These balls are almost never easy, but that was my job and I liked the challenge. Although, as much as I enjoyed playing back row,when Sofia, my opposite, was out of town for a little while due to ski jumping nationals, I got to play front row. Me! I was so excited I swear you could see the beams of light coming off of me.

That’s not everything though, there were new games, new drills, six-on-six, triples tournaments with the program (during one of which my friend Hali broke the freshmen coach’s finger), the regional tournament, the doubles tournament that we played in Halloween costumes yesterday. All of our wins and our losses, and the dreaded conditioning days (yikes!) and every practice in between. I can still remember seeing my name on the roster list, trying to Snapchat a video of it and shaking so hard you could barely read my name. All of it was an important part of this freshmen season for me.I’m so sad that this season has com to an end, I can’t wait to do it all again next year (y’know, if I make the team again). For now though, at least I can look forward to club.

My jerseys from this freshmen season.

Play Tough

Long rally, I’m thinking as the point is still being played out after a couple minutes. Finally, after a lot of work at the net by our girls, the ball drops. Quick, deep, nonreturnable, and most importantly, on the other side. Yes! There ya go girls!  Then I look up, “Coach?” She nods, that’s my cue, I call “Sub!” to the ref and then meet Sofia on the ten foot line. When the ref gives us the oaky to switch, she’s out and I’m in. Okay, time to serve… Deep breath, just run through my usual routine, I got this. There are a few, “Let’s go Sarah!”’s and then the gym goes silent. The up ref blows her whistle and sweeps her hand out in front of her, I can go.

I take a deep breath and start my approach. A low toss and a fast swing, Go! is the only thing I’m thinking about as I land and break to my position. It’s good, skimming just over the net and dropping between two of the other players. My team jumps into a circle with an “Aaaaaaaaaa Ace! Woo!” popping our jerseys. I grab the ball and run back to serve again. I’m met with “Yeah, keep it up Sarah!” from many of my teammates and a “Nice job.” from Jess, the line judge on this side. Alright, let’s do it again; same short toss, same fast swing. The serve is good, placed away from the last and a little higher, but it’s in and the ball is in play. I see their setter preparing for a four set, and knowing that hitter, it’s coming over, hard.

I get down, this ball is coming to me. It’s fast and powerful, This won’t be a very pretty pass but… It wasn’t a pass at all. That ball hit my arms and went flying in the complete opposite direction I wanted it to. “Crap!” I mutter under my breath as we come into the circle again with a bunch of us saying, “No worries, shake it off!” and returning to our spots. Come on, it’s the last match of the season. Let’s finish strong. We HAVE to beat Morgan. The whistle blows, not for the server, but for a timeout by Park City. We come into the huddle and Coach K looks around saying, "I called this mainly as a refresh, we just need a little break to collect ourselves. Come on girls, play tough."

Our last huddle of the season as the freshmen team

Game Day

It’s 6:00 a.m. on a Thursday. The alarm is slowly fading into Sugar by Maroon 5. Eyes barely opening I look up to the glowing blue screen. Blink quickly, but my vision is still hazy, sigh softly and roll over, thinking Come on Adam, let me sleep. It doesn’t make a difference though, I have to get up. Reluctantly, I turn on the light and stumble blindly towards my bathroom. Ugh, bright lights, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and splashing water on my face. I check the clock again, 6:10 then wet my hair down and go back to my room to get dressed. “Jeans?” I ask to myself, “Yeah, why not.” Forty minutes later get on the bus, the typical exchange of “Hey.” between everyone. Sit down, stuff my practice bag under seat, get my earphones plugged into my phone and curl up against the window for a quiet ride.

7:30, first bell rings, slowly make my way through the hallways. Thinking the same things as always, Walk. Go… Walk! No, don’t stop here, you’re in the middle of the hall. What the hell are you doing? MOVE! If only I could actually say this, but I can’t so I only mutter an “Ugh.” under my breathe and carry on. The class is quiet, Tuesday, everyone remembering that we don’t get out early. The blank looks from my peers are only tiring me further, best to just sit down and get ready for class and hope it goes by quickly. That’s the plan for today, sit down, shut up, and pray for the bell. It works, so why not keep it up all day… Until lunch that is.

Back to my music, the best escape from everything. Plugging my earphones into my phone once again I can space out from what’s around me. Well, I can until Dillon comes up behind me with a hug, “Hey girl, hey!” I turn around smiling, he always knows how to make my day better. “Hey.” I say to the small group of friends forming around me, who always seem to turn up around the same time.  After lunch however we split up, Bella and I walking to the other building for our last period classes. It’s engineering for me, ‘bout time I go to a class I really enjoy. However, that’s not what I’m really looking forward to; I'm waiting for the last bell. It rings, Finally 2:25! I grab my game bag and head towards the gym at last. Stopping in the doorway I take a deep relieving breathe, it’s game day.

The door to the gym in our high school

That's Game.

It's game point in the second game of three in this match. After a jump serve that skimmed just over the net the crowd is screaming, yet all the players hear is silence, some wondering how freshman volleyball could be so intense. The first pass, perfect platform, with a call of “Four! Four! Four!” from across the court, it’s straight to the setter. She sets it, high, soaring, no spin, right to the outside position. The hit, her approach was flawlessly timed and the swing had great follow-through, ending was powerful and well placed. Unfortunately there was a passer, the first touch was a little sloppy, but not quite a shank. The second even worse, the ball flying behind her and towards the back line of the court. Then in comes a third player, desperately sprinting under the ball trying to line up. She makes contact, the ball lightly touching her forearms, and then…

Shank! Her feet stumble, body lurches forward, and the ball she’d worked so hard to pass is fleeting at the stands to the innocent viewers. They swing wildly above their heads to deflect the ball which slams against the wall behind them. Ref blows the whistle and the play is officially over. Our team is jumping and screaming, that’s game. Now just to do it one more time to fifteen. We’re receiving, down and ready on our toes. Steps twice, a gentle toss as we hop into motion then her hard swing. Libero passes high to the ten foot line, running to my position I yell for “Shoot! Shoot!” Setter heard me, the ball is coming close and low to the net. With a quick four step approach, I jump and reach, coming down hard with an open hand and aiming for line.

Image courtesy of SanFranPreps.com 

Problem? There’s a blocker, and she’s timed her jump with mine. The ball slaps against her hands and comes back down on my side. I hop sideways trying to pass it back off the net for my setter and call for a shoot again. She gave it to me, and this time I’m getting past this block. Swinging with a full load up I bring my hitting arm back and as I jump she jumps. She’s ready for another hard hit, but that’s not what I’m giving her. My arm pulls back and hands come up as the ball is lightly tipped over her fingers to land right behind her. The opposing team exchanges glares while we celebrate. The whistle blows, the ref crossing his arms over his body then bringing his hands together in front of him. That’s game.