By Lydia Brown (’22)
Bump. Set. Spike.
If you’re familiar with the sport of volleyball, you might know that these are the three fundamental skills in volleyball. Whatever various names they may be called–pass, set, hit; receive, set, kill– these three skills are the core of playing volleyball.
Bump. The first thing you need to learn when learning how to play volleyball is how to pass. It’s the most important skill. It supports the rest of the play; it’s the backbone. One thing our team worked hard to learn is how to love each other well, whether by making jokes to get us laughing, getting us excited by yelling and cheering, or just an encouraging word. By doing this, we bring everyone together as a unified team on the court.
Set. As a setter, I know that one of the key fundamentals to setting is hustle. Setters have to be ready at all times to run after all kinds of passes–some that might go to the target, or some that might go off in an unexpected direction. God taught our team something similar over the years. In general, we were pushing to get enough people for a team. And all three seasons, we lost a key player halfway through the season due to an injury. In 2019, Rose went out with a sprained ankle; in 2020, Lily dove for a ball and shattered her hand; and this year, Delainey broke her arm playing soccer and went out for the rest of the season. We had to completely reconfigure rotations and positions to adjust. And all three years reinforced the same lesson: don’t stop; it’s God’s perfect timing. Some would hear about an injury and think, Welp. That’s it. We’re done. But despite having new positions and new rotations thrown at us from every direction, we learned that we can’t stop giving everything we have. We have to keep moving to the next thing, always staying on our toes and ready for whatever comes our way, trusting that God’s timing is what’s best.
Spike. This is the end of the play, the attack, what all the work to set up the play culminates in. The hitter lines up, launches into the air, and then slams the ball down on the other side of the net. The biggest thing our team has been working on, this year and in past years, is to keep hitting hard. There comes a point in the season where things start to slow down, you get tired, and a lot of teams will start to lose momentum. This is where every player needs to decide to give 100%, all the time. NO REGRETS has become our motto, and we use it to encourage the team regularly. Players need to go out on the court, give everything they have, and leave no regrets. Attack on the court and play to the best of our ability to the glory of God.
Whether having random dance parties in the middle of practice, sliding across the court, yelling “CHICKEN PARMESAN!” while going up for a joust, setting up for amazing kills, or just playing together as a team, the past three years have been amazing, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
