It's Sunday morning, 10 am and I am just waking up. Today is my volleyball championship and I am ready to play. However, I continue to lay down until I hear my mom from down stairs. I roll out of bed and walk over to my door to hear what she is saying. 

“GET UP ANNIE, WE NEED TO LEAVE IN 30 MINUTES!” my mom screams.

  I walk back over to my chair where I put my volleyball jersey and shorts the night before while rubbing my eyes to keep them open. I still feel tired, but I get dressed anyway.I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and do my hair. I slick it back into a high ponytail with this blue rubber band I found on my bathroom counter. I open one of the cabinets and take a black headband to make sure all my hair stays back. I go back to my room and grab my Nike socks and my phone.

  I see a text message in my volleyball team’s group chat. It says “Hey girls, its coach just letting you know the game starts at 12:30. Get to the gym at 10:30 the latest, we need to practice.” 

I run down the stairs while my mom yells out, “5 MINUTES!!”

   I grab my pink metal water bottle, a granola bar and my black knee pads from the counter. I slide on some ugg slippers and take my bag from the dining room table. My mother and I dash to the car. At the moment, it's 10:27 and the gym is around 10 to 15 minutes away. We start to pull out of the driveway and I realize I forgot my volleyball shoes.

“Mom, stop the car!” I shouted.

  I jump out of the car and run inside. I grabbed the shoes from under the table and then ran back. I am now in the car, out of breath, but finally we left the house.

“You know we are going to be late.” My mom says. 

“I know, but it’s better late than never.” I said back.

  I arrive at the gym at 10:43, I tell my mom goodbye and I gather all my things and run inside. I see my coach standing at the front door with her arms crossed. I can already tell she's mad.

I ran over and explained to her what had happened, “Coach, I am sorry I am late. But I have a good reason! It’s because…” 

  She cuts me off, “I do not care what you have to say, get inside and you better be working your hardest. You are playing outside hitter today, but who knows if you will even play.”She then yells at me again to get inside.

  I dash to the other girls, who are already warming up in the gym. I throw my things on the floor by the bleachers and shove my shoes on. The girls on my team are doing drills so I hop onto the outside hitter line and wait. After a couple minutes, It’s finally my turn and the setter sets the ball to the perfect spot. I take a few steps to get momentum, jump in the air and spike the ball. I saw that my coach was watching, she didn’t look too pleased, but I knew it was a good hit. After warm ups we go get water and take a break. As we are finishing up, the opposing team walks in. None of us knew who we were versus until then and of course it was the one team we lost too. They go to the other side of the gym and start to practice. I wasn’t that nervous before they arrived because we were doing so well this season, but now I am very anxious. We came this far and I want to win it all. I can see all the other girls are thinking the same thing by their faces.

  I bring everyone into a huddle and whisper to them all, “Guys, we don’t need to be nervous. We got this! We just need to play our best and we can beat them.” 

  They all agree and we go into a circle and bump  the ball to each other while everyone starts to arrive to watch the game. 

  Finally everyone arrives and since we are the home team they serve the ball first. Coach chooses who is going to play first. I have always played first, but coach was still mad at me. She already chose 5 girls and is considering whether she should put me in or not. She knows I am good but since I got here late she feels the need to take that spot away from me.

Coach then says, “Alright the last girl that's going to play first is Lily. Get out there girls and play your best” she claps and walks over to the sideline of the court.

  I knew she didn’t put me in because I was late but I still was so upset. I walked over with the rest of the girls with a frown on my face. The server on the other team hits the ball over and Amanda, the libero on my team receives the ball. Then Daniella, our setter, sets the ball to the right outside hitter, Charlie. She spikes the ball towards the back of the court. Someone on the opposite team tries to dive for it, but they miss. We scored a point! Everyone in the stands cheered and now it was our serve. 

  The points were going back and forth, my coach kept subbing people in and out to see what was going to work best for our team. Until the score was 9 to 8. They were winning. She finally decides she needs to put in our strongest hitter, me! 

She explains, “You better not disappoint Annie, go!” my coach shouts.

  I ran out onto the court with a giant smile on my face. We then started once again. After a bit, we started to get ahead. It was our game point, we had 24 points and they had 16 points. Gianna, the best server on my team, was up to serve. The ball glided smoothly over the net and they received it. They set the ball and then spiked it but Amanda bumped the ball up into the air with a diving save. Our setter runs over and sets the ball to me. I jump up and when I am about to spike it over, I slip. How could I have slipped? The ball then hits the floor and I could hear all the girls on the other team laughing. I tried to get up but I couldn’t, my ankle felt numb. 

“Can someone help me? My ankle, it hurts. I think I twisted it.” I explained.

  All the girls run over and help me over to the bench. Coach put a sub in to replace me and then grabbed an ice pack she had in her bag. She handed it to me and then the game continued. About 10 minutes later the game was once again tied. I saw all the girls' faces on my team, they looked defeated, tired and exhausted. I needed to be in there for my team. I stood up strong and walked over to my coach. 

“Put me in, I am ready!” I said confidently.

Coach then replied, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to hurt your ankle any worse.” 

“Yes, I am sure.” I say.

  I walk back on the court and all the girls gain their energy back. The other team is serving now, she hits it and we receive it. Daniella sets it to me. I take a deep breath, and stay concentrated. I took 3 steps to get momentum, and jump. I don’t think I have ever jumped that high before. I then spike the ball and a girl on the opposing team tries to receive it. It bounces off her arms onto the ground and all you hear is the crowd cheering. 

Coach yelled, “We won!” 

  All of the other girls on my team run onto the court and we celebrate. I look over to the other side of the court and I see the opposite team leaving with disappointing faces. I don't want to be rude but they deserve it. We were all so happy and excited. 

  When everything started to calm down the owner of the league came over and gave us our giant trophy for winning. He also had another award. 

“This other trophy goes to the most valuable player and we believe it should go to Annie!” the owner says.

My eyes open wide and I am completely shocked, I tell him “Thank you so much.”

  Everyone then claps and we take a group picture. I held up my trophy with pride and confidence. This day is so memorable and I will never forget it. All of those girls are my best friends. I grew up playing volleyball with them every week and it was finally our day to celebrate it all! I knew all of the hard work was finally worth it.