Another year, another season, but what a season!

Jayd’s volleyball team had an amazing finish this year.  As they approached the last 4 games of the season, their record was 3-10.  We were pleased with that record, last season they were 1-15.  So three wins was feeling like a huge improvement.  The last four happened to be a string of games, all squeezed into less than a week. 

On Wednesday, they played the Aggies at home.  At their last contest, we had won the match.  They were able to live up to the expectations and swept the match. 

On Thursday, they were in the gym again matched up against the untested Donteros.  This was a hard fought match.  Midway through the fourth game, it appeared to be over.  Donteros was leading 2 sets to 1 set, and commanding a multiple point lead in the game.  But we didn’t give up.  Point by point, we caught up, surpassed the Donteros lead and won the fourth game to force a final fifth game.  In the fifth game, we came out on fire, and easily won the game.  Jayd had a solo block to capture game point and end the match.

On Friday, we travelled to our opponent’s arena.  I was not able to attend that game, but once again, our team triumphed by sweeping them in 3 straight games.  In that three day string of games, they had doubled their win record to 6-10.  In our minds, this was a winning season.

On Tuesday, we played our rivals at home.  This was the season ending game for our boys, and for some, their high school career.  A win would have been an elusive taste of ambrosia for the departing players and create a hunger in those that would return next year.  But alas, we had never beaten this team before.  The match started in a similar fashion to the Donteros game.  They won the first game, we won the second game.  Already we had earned a laurel wreath.  For as long as Jayd has played this sport, we have not even won a game against our rivals.  We were proud of this single win.  They dispatched us easily in the third set and were ahead in the fourth set as well, when the unthinkable happened.  We started to catch up.  We tied the game, then we went ahead.  Could we possibly force a fifth game?  We could, and we did!!  You could feel the tidal wave of momentum shift throughout the gym.  Our team was pumped, theirs was frustrated.  There was further evidence of this frustration as the yellow cards against their team began to fly.  In the end, they received 5 yellow cards during the match.  The fifth game started.  We came out of the gates ready to play.  We quickly gained a 5 point lead.  But they weren’t willing to give up yet.  They fought and came back to tie the game.  Undaunted, we refused to give up the fight.  Jayd was given the opportunity to hit the ball several times and he prevailed.  We pulled ahead to a 14-12 score.  Just like history repeating itself from the Donteros game, Jayd had a solo block to win the game.  We couldn’t believe it (and neither could our rivals).  It felt like David upsetting Goliath, although in this case Goliath was more of the size of an NBA player instead of a real 15 foot giant.  We were so happy.  It may never happen again, but it was worth the win for all of the players.  That game will not be forgotten for a long time.

In addition to a fabulous ending to the season, Jayd had a personal amazing season.  He lead the team with 200 kills, 37 aces and 18 solo blocks.   He was named to the 3^rd team all-miramonte league.  This is quite an honor.  At the end of the season, the coaches from all the teams get together and make “dream team” from the league.  They voted that Jayd should be on the 3^rd team.  I thought that was impressive that the other coaches knew who he was and recognized his efforts on his team’s behalf despite their less than stellar record.