The Unexpected Emotions That Come With Playing Volleyball

The View From The Top

June is in her Sophomore year when she's called the Ace player of her volleyball team, and this year Foxflower High was competing in the Girls Volleyball Spring Tournament. June and her teammates step into the building and see the audience watching from their seats, soon the first game of the season will begin. She has spent hours practicing on a court just like this one and to her spiking came like second nature. They begin their warm-ups, doing their routinely stretches and team huddle talks. June hears footsteps get louder and louder behind her as the person approaches, feeling a menacing presence over her shoulder.

    "Hey June," A familiar voice said provokingly, and June dreaded the next few minutes. She turns her head to direct a sharp glare at a figure none other then Calla, the leader of their opposing team, Winter Bear Academy.  "Just came to say good luck and good wishes and all that, and I heard you're the Ace now, congratulations!" she chirped in a tone that was overly faked, the effort was almost enough to mask the sarcasm.

June sighed, "What do you want Calla," she said with exasperation deep in her voice.

"Whatever do you mean?" she asked condescendingly. "I'm just displaying good sportsmanship to my team." Calla gestured towards her teammates, who were too busy stretching to pay attention. "See? Now go and do your warm-up and try not to think about losing, it would be a shame if you drag your team down with you." Calla left with a smile that looked awfully smug, and June turned back to her team with looming thoughts of self-doubt.

The game begins at the blow of a whistle, with the opposing team—Winter Bear—serving first. One second, two, three seconds and the ball is up in the air. Fifteen minutes later and the score is 19-17, Foxflower was behind and June knows they need to reach the 20 point mark first. It's Winter Bear's serve, and the ball gets perfectly delivered to Foxflower's libero in the back row.

    "Nice receive!" the ball goes upwards and towards their setter, Anri.

    "Over here!" June shouts, moving to the left side of the court. Anri's eyes dart to June, shooting her the ball to setup a spike. The volleyball is quick but June has trained herself to match its speed. She can see the ball right there in front of her, as if time had slowed down to allow her this moment to act. All she needed to do was move accordingly. June swings her arm a millisecond after the ball's peak. As it whizzes past her, June realizes, she missed the spike. The thud of it hitting the ground echos throughout the stadium before a loud buzzer sounds and there are cheers from the other side of the net. The score is 20-17, and they can only hope to catch up before Winter Bear reaches 24.

    "Don't mind it, keep going!" her teammates try to reassure, but June knows that their chances of narrowing the gap are low this late into the game. Foxflower rotates their positions and June is now in the center of the front row. Face to face with her rival, Calla.

    "I'm sure that last 'spike' was a fluke, don't mind it." Calla starts, tone sickeningly sweet. "But then again, how many points have you scored this set? Two? Maybe even three?" she says with venom laced into her words, lips twisting into a smirk. June knows Calla is trying to get under her skin and is frustrated at how easily she's doing it too. Knows that Calla is using words to distract her and make her mess up, but June can't help but think that she's right. The Ace is the best offensive player on the team, who scores the most points and gets their name out there as a force to be reckoned with, and June just hasn't been a big presence this game.

    The blow of a whistle and a white blur of a volleyball going over the net. The libero receives the ball and gives it to Anri.

    "Again!" June shouts, pleading for another chance. This time she hits the ball without thinking to check her surroundings, and when it doesn't reach the other side of the net she thinks it's too cruel of a consequence to exist. Instead, in front of her is Calla, arms over her head as she jumps for a block. June hears a thud that rings in her ears, and when she looks behind her the ball has reached the floor. The sound of a buzzer announces that Winter Bear has gained another point, 21-17. Still in shock, she looks at Calla, who has a devilish grin plastered onto her face.

    "There's a reason why I'm usually the middle blocker, you should've given someone else a chance to spike," Calla says with a glint in her eyes, almost as if she was seeing June as a child after a tantrum and the thought had amused her. When Calla lets out a chuckle and turns to her teammates, June looks at her hands, still trying to grapple with reality. June watches her coach stand from the bench and call for a time out, both teams step off the court and gather around at opposite sides.

    "For the rest of the game I think you should rest June, someone else can switch places with you until you're feeling better." Her coach says with a sympathetic smile, and June can't even disagree with them. So she sits on the bench without putting up a fight, slumping as she watches the rest of the first set on the sidelines. She looks down at her right hand, which was now tightly closed with frustration, and uses her left hand to gently pry open the fist. Seeing her dirtied palm, she sighs a breath of relief. Because June understands that is the best option for them. She lifts her head, looking up to see the court, see the game. From here she can see the way the rest of her team works together. She catches the strategies subtly and silently passed through gestures, the trust and reassurance shared between players.

June understands where she went wrong. Instead of trying so hard to be a player worthy of the title "Ace" by scoring every point with her offense, she should've communicated with her teammates. Should've come up with different ways to get points without landing spikes. She shouldn't have made her teammates work for her, rather she should've been working with them. June knew what needed to be done in the next set, and all it took was a little change in perspective.

They lose the first set, but with the second one, June returns with more resolve and determination than when she arrived.

"I think we should split attacks between me and Mia," June suggests, turning to look at Mia, their right-side hitter who hasn't yet had her chance to shine.

"Are you sure?" Mia says, and June gives her a bright smile.

"I know you can do it."

    They start the game, and twenty-one minutes later the score is 24-22. This time Foxflower was in the lead, only one point away from a third set. June whispers a message to Anri, who nods and looks forward with a scarily focused stare. After the ball is served and received, she and Anri are in their positions for a spike. Calla moves to block June, arms becoming an iron wall. But by doing this, the center was left wide open, and Winter Bear realized what was happening a second too late. Anri lightly hits the ball over the net, and June watched as three players dived to try and dig up the fast-falling volleyball. It lands on the polished wood floor with a thud, everyone shocked that the set was won with a setter dump. The deafening silence is broken by the buzzer as cheers erupt among Foxflower.

    "If we can win this third set," June thought, mind racing and body tired from moving. "If we can score enough points to continue up the bracket, we can play another game, against another team, for another day." The chance of playing another game, that hope was what drove her to keep playing.

    The third set starts and twenty-seven minutes go by. The score is 24-23 with Foxflower leading, and they just needed this one last point to avoid a deuce, a tie would only weaken their morale. Before the whistle blows for Winter Bear to serve, Anri catches June's gaze. Anri looks June in the eyes, her face screaming with an unmistakable message as she nods. June's heart skips a beat, her body moves, almost subconsciously, to where there are no blockers in front of the net. As she jumps up as high as she can, the ball appears just as she expected. Following its path in the air at a speed too calm for such a high stake moment like this one. Time slows down, and above the net, she can see the other side of the court. It was open, and the other players were too far away to reach the ball in time. They would score this final point, win this game, and play another one.

In this tiny sliver of a second, June sees the view from the top of the net and engraves it into her mind forever.