All For The Love Of The Game

Most. Intense. Ever.

That’s it, three words to explain what happened this week.

Let’s start from the beginning: on Monday I get the text from my track coach saying that I am entered to run in the regional meet, which of course I can’t go to because of my two-day volleyball tournament. Then we start into SAGE testing, thank god at least a portion of that is over, however that probably had a contribution to my pent-up rage for this weekend. And on Thursday I slammed my wrist into a large metal handle on the gym door, only to keep banging it on the floor at practice that evening.

On Friday, my dad picked me up early from school so we could get to Timpview high school for our very last tournament of the season. For probably the first time ever, I showed up first, this was no big deal except for the fact that no one else from my team got there until about an hour afterwards, but whatever I got to scout the competition, which was a combination of club and premiere for both fifteens and sixteens. Aka, giants in comparison. Soon enough we were all geared up and just itching to get on the court, well, I was anyway. 

The blisters on the backs of my heels

Unfortunately, it seemed everyone on my team was half dead so we didn’t even really show up to the first set. It was sickening how badly we lost that game. I mean, yikes! And believe me, I contributed my fair share of shitty passes, but we were all shanking. Thankfully by the end of the second set, we had woken up from whatever daze we had fallen under and were playing like usual. It wasn’t enough to win that match but we carried our momentum through the rest of that day and into the next. (Minus the first match on Saturday, but that was against Wasatch and we don’t wanna talk about it). That momentum carried us to be the only fifteen year old team in the silver bracket on Saturday, making us the farthest advanced fifteens team in the tournament.

Right now, I am going to bed so covered in bruises that that i doubt I’ll be able to sleep much because we fought, and we fought hard. But the bangs, the bruises and the blood are what set us apart. It’s all for the love of the game.

And my banged up knees, even with the use of pads

Get It Started

So today is the first day of the two day tournament of this weekend, and even more excitedly (if that’s possible) it was the last day of finals! Hells yeah! I made it through the quarter and I am happy to say that I did so while juggling two different sports and still got honor roll. Yeah, I’m pretty cool, I know.

But aside from that, I have a tournament today! And I am SO EXCITED! This may be the last tourney of the regular season but I was also invited, aka recruited, to play in the extended season again this year. So that’s bad ass, and to make it better, I’m really having a breakthrough with my attacking so I’ll really be able to whoop ass in extended. I’m really looking forward to it. To add to this excitement, I was just awarded another new position, making me a more valuable player because I can be placed wherever I am needed. During this extended season, along with playing as an outside hitter, I can be put in as a setter, opposite hitter, and now libero. Libero is the best passer on the team, and a great position to learn. 

My new libero jersey

The only catch is that this position comes with a good amount of rules attached. Firstly, when I’m marked as libero by wearing a differently colored jersey, I can ONLY play back row. I also will not be able to jump for my attack unless I take off from behind the ten foot line on the court. But I am still super excited about playing Premiere in the extended season, (we won’t be this weekend because my coach forgot to sign us up, but oh well, we’ll bring home GOLD baby!), and I can’t wait for it to start. Let’s get it started!

Kinda Disapointing

Heads up now… This is a RANT.

So after attending my track practice this Monday, I found that I WAS invited to the last meet! I just didn’t know because I never got the email with my invitation. I also found out that I have qualified to throw javelin and nearly made times to run the 200 and girls 4x400 relay for the Pineview meet. I am SO CLOSE!

The event Schedule for the Pineview meet I qualified for, courtesy of the coaches email on Monday.

But here’s the catch, even with those new achievements under my belt, I can’t go. Why, you may ask, because I have my last freaking two day tournament (of the regular season) on the SAME DAYS as the meet! Talk about misfortunate, I wanna run AND play, don’t make me choose, that just ain’t cool dude.

My track coaches know that I had a prior commitment to volleyball but I still really want to compete in track so you can bet your boots I’m gonna haul ass in this Wednesday’s meet. I need to prove that I can set a new personal record and make up for not making it to last Saturday’s meet. I’m taking this as the chance to truly KICK ASS in the 400, which is my best race.

That is, until today… I ran my worst time for my best race. I got a seventy-two second 400 and in the process strained my leg and made the last 200 absolute Hell to run. I walked off the track today with a limp, but hey, I finished. On the downside, however, I had to drop my Open 200 and go home before the girls 4x400 due to the fact that I could no longer put enough pressure on my right leg even to walk, which meant running was out of the question. So I finished the day with my best accomplishment being that I got checked out by multiple guys from both Park City and others schools at the meet. And to be honest, even that was kinda disappointing.

NOT Getting Benched

So I have my last tournament of the regular club season this weekend, it’s going to be a two day tourney and we’re playing in premiere. Which would be awesome, except there’s just one little problem… the tourney is on the same days as the Pineview invitational track meet that I’ve been trying to get to.

Now, of course I have to choose the tournament over the meet, mainly because the odds of me being invited to this meet aren’t exactly in my favor. But here’s the thing, I’ve been working my ass off trying to get invited, and thought I might have had a chance, until I found out about this tournament. I’ll keep running and just know that volleyball wins over this weekend, no biggie.

It’s not that big of a deal, I mean right? I only worked harder to try to make my times better than I have for anything in a while.

courtesy of the Club Elevate calendar

The problem with me working so hard to improve my times, is that I stressed my leg pretty bad. I mean, I couldn’t walk around my own house on thursday night bad. It’s been brutal, I’ve been in excruciating pain for the past three weeks. Not that my coaches know about it though, and I plan to keep it that way. I live very whole heartedly by the say ‘Never Let Them See You Bleed.’ So between that and my high threshold of pain tolerance, I will rarely admit to anything hurting me, and NEVER let an injury keep me from competing. Under any circumstance. Ever. I work too damn hard to give up on the best part of the sport. There’s something I guess I say pretty often lately, “I don’t care if I’m bleeding out of my eyes, I am NOT getting benched!”

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