Lucy Sandahl and her teammates made some phenomenal hustle plays Tuesday during the most epic JV volleyball match I’ve witnessed. (Photo by JohnsPhotos.net)
No quit. Ever.
Tuesday night’s varsity volleyball match-up between Coupeville and South Whidbey was the headliner, a battle between undefeated teams vying for the league lead.
But if you missed the opening act, your soul is poorer for it.
The Wolf and Falcon JV squads threw down three sets of hyped-up, mega-intense, classic action, filled with amazing come-backs, huge mood swings and quite possibly the single most stunning play I’ve ever witnessed in a volleyball match.
That one team had to lose wasn’t fair, but, in the end, despite winning more points (75-66), Coupeville fell a centimeter short, as their hosts pulled out a 12-25, 27-25, 27-25 thriller.
The loss drops the Wolves to 1-1 in North Sound Conference action, 2-2 overall.
But, while the Falcons can justifiably celebrate a win in which they rallied from down a set, and trailing 17-7 in the second, it’s hard to think of the Wolves as losers.
To a woman, they sold out on every play, running down balls that were headed for the stands, collecting floor burns galore, and refusing to cede any point.
That was driven home midway through the first set, when South Whidbey celebrated too early on a kill, only to have Coupeville sophomore sensation Maddie Vondrak rip out their collective spine and show it to them.
To be fair, the Falcons had nailed a spike which looked 99.999999992 percent certain to be a winner, which is why, as a group, they had turned their backs on the Wolves and were converging for a group fist bump and cheer.
Vondrak was prone on the floor, with only her body between the descending ball and the floor, when, by means which scientists will debate for years to come, she threw her fist up over her head.
And … HOLY CRUD ON A STICK … not only made contact with a ball she couldn’t really see, but popped it perfectly into the air and onto the fingertips of a teammate.
Who promptly flicked it further skyward just as Zoe Trujillo, flying in from the right side, dropped her fist like the hammer of death and blasted a spike which really wasn’t coming back.
It was a play which caught everyone by surprise.
From the Falcons, who skidded to a halt, six jaws slamming onto the floor, to the refs, who both looked at each other, shaking their heads in amazement, to Vondrak, who popped up, smile reaching from one corner of the gym to the other.
Coming hot on the heels of a sizzlin’ run at the service stripe from Willow Vick, getting key assistance from twin sister Raven, who lashed one winner off a Falcon player’s chest, it captured Coupeville’s JV squad at its most-explosive.
The Wolves were in total control in the opening set, from Lucy Sandahl springing skyward at the last second, looking one way while using just her fingertips to redirect a ball the other way for a winner, to Vondrak pounding the snot out of the ball time and again.
That hot streak continued for most of the second set, with Sandahl throwing down a long, successful run at the service stripe and Trujillo smashing a winner off the back line which then took a nasty bounce and bit a chunk out of the back wall.
Up 17-7, things looked rosy … and then they didn’t.
South Whidbey rediscovered some lost magic, and a little luck, coming all the way back to take the lead, and have a set point at 24-23.
Coupeville fought off that point, however, thanks to another miracle save, and rode a superb serve from Willow Vick to actually put itself on match point at 25-24.
It wasn’t to be, though, as the Falcons ran off the final three points, overcoming Vondrak sprinting off the court for yet another miracle save, to knot things up at a set apiece.
At that point, it was like watching two heavyweight boxers late in a championship fight, standing in the middle of the ring and just punching like mad.
South Whidbey landed the first hay-maker, running out to its own 17-7 lead in the third set.
The Wolves could have crumbled. Should have crumbled. But, wait for it.
Yep, Coupeville then stormed back, behind precise, powerful serving from both Vick sisters and Trujillo, turning a 10-point deficit into four late ties.
The first came at 21-21, the most heart-pounding at 24-24, after CHS fought off two match points, thanks to a high-flying tip from Sandahl and a cannon shot of a spike by Trujillo.
Or maybe the most heart-pounding came at 25-25, after the Wolves fought off a third match point.
That came on a play where, once again, the ball was all but dead, until Vondrak, using every inch of her long right arm, spun the ball back into play while sprinting straight at her screaming bench.
But even miracles sometimes run out.
Trying to fight off a fourth match point, Coupeville kept what turned out to be the game’s final rally going for an eternity.
The Wolves saved the ball one, two, three times … only to watch a final shot, headed out of bounds, somehow, improbably, fatally, catch the last flake of paint in the deepest corner on the court.
It was, in the end, the only way this match could end – with a perfect, nearly impossible to duplicate shot.
Two teams exited afterwards, and the score-book will tell you one team won, and the other lost.
Not entirely true.
The Falcon JV deserves to celebrate their triumph. They wouldn’t give in or give up.
But neither did the Wolves.
Regardless of the score, the way Trujillo, Sandahl, Vondrak, the Vicks, Anya Leavell, Abby Mulholland and Jaimee Masters played, the way they fought, point after point after endless point, bodes well for their future.
Sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t tell the entire story.
Sometimes both teams win.
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