Memories made by volleying a ball.

There may not be many of us left, but the Lady Falcons remember. All the hours of suicides and cross-court setting in the brutal August sun. Lincoln logs and the 'W' drill. Overhand serves and backwards setting. AndaCondos and perfecting spikes. Tracks mown into the field and midnight leaf runs. Oh yes. The Lady Falcons remember it well.

Volleyball season.

I joined the Lady Falcons the summer of my freshman year. Jacelyn and I were the only two ninth grade girls, making us co-captains of the JV team and backups for the varsity. Before the first week of practices were over, however, I made an enemy. The worst person to have as your enemy on a volleyball team is, by far, your own coach. I affectionately remember being chased across the parking lot and knocked flat to the ground by an ice-cold waterfall from the cooler, with Catrina waving her red sweatshirt in the background. Pastor Condos is forevermore affectionately known to me as 'Sir Pastor Torro'.

Sir Torro had a temper indeed. For one thing, every single girl learned very quickly not to say the word "sucks" and to also ALWAYS keep her hands together when bumping. Kaitlyn Riley learned that lesson very well when her hands were literally tied together for a week by her own Silly Bandz. 

Certain other team members with louder mouths who could not refrain from using banned words were forced to do humiliating push-ups in front of everybody.

Our coach's favorite punishment for anything done wrong was not laps, benching from games, public humiliation, suicides, or the like. No. Around August and September, the fields in the back of the church property are six feet tall with corn. Our coach found great pleasure in sending us girls through that corn to the edge of the church property, plucking off a leaf from a particular tree, and running back to return it to our master. These inhumane dashes became affectionately known to all as 'leaf runs', which Jacelyn turned into a lovely Facebook Flair piece.

However, all that hard physical work paid off. At one point, Pastor Binkley's soccer guys challenged us to a sprinting relay race, thinking the easy win would boost their egos and pride. We easily beat them by almost three people. Ha.

All our hard work finally paid off in the end. At the end of the season, our first round of playoffs was against our eternal archenemy: Chesapeake Christian. After hours of sweating, shouting, and diving all over the place, the matches were tied 2-2, so a fifteen-point fifth game was needed to win. After even more intense sweating, shouting, and diving all over the place, the score was tied at 15. With each team giving it their best, the score kept switching sides up until eighteen. Then, by the amazing serve of Catrina June Case, the Lady Falcons won the first round of playoffs against their top rival. That was by far the most intense game of my life.

Spending seven hours together each day in school and then three hours after in practice brought the Lady Falcons very close together. At one game against Denton, the team wasn't doing very well. At all. The soccer team came in and certain members decided to not only cheer for the other team, but also ask for some of the girls' numbers afterward. Needless to say, we were not happy. So at the next soccer game, the Lady Falcons stayed after school to decorate T-shirts and makes banners and posters - cheering for their rival, Salisbury Christian. At the game, we acted like loyal SCS fans, complete with cheering and facepaint supplied by their very own coach, who was in on the prank. Granted, the aftereffects weren't very pleasant, but we made our point very clear and were respected in the end.

 Being on this team with these girls for so long has been one of my greatest memories of high school. There is so much more I could tell about each of these girls and times spent with them, but unfortunately, I am running out of time and space. I want to thank each of the girls on these team for being such a great friend, and I am so sorry that I couldn't enjoy one more year with you. I hope our friendships will last for a lifetime.