Beating Ledford for the coach In my senior year in high school my volleyball coach was pregnant, and our team knew that her baby was due sometime within our season. However, we didn’t know it would occur on our biggest game of the season. When I arrived at school the day of the big game I found out that our coach was having her baby, and she wasn’t going to make it to Ledford. Anyone who plays a sport and loves the game knows that playing your biggest rival is the most important game of the year. As we stepped on the court the adrenaline rush was overwhelming. During the pep talk, the last words said were, “Let’s do this for Coach.” From the time that first whistle blew, until the last hit landed on their side, our team didn’t quit. We won the first match in extra points after battling back from an 11-point deficit, but we lost the second match. The third game we were down by 8, but we rallied back again and won. This was it—the last match—just 25 points away from beating Ledford which Coach hadn’t seen happen in the eight years she was at East Davidson. It was a rush, but it also felt like things were moving in slow motion, until the last point was ours. We had fought back two hard games, and we buried them in the fourth game winning 25–13. The fans were screaming. We had done it. We went crazy, jumping into each others’ arms and diving on the floor. This was an unbelievable moment. We grabbed a phone, ran outside and called Coach, who was lying in her hospital bed. We could hear her crying; she was so proud of us. Although she wasn’t there to see it, her heart was there. We told her we did it for her. She said, “No, you did it for yourselves.” It was a game I’ll never forget. We didn’t make it to playoffs, but we beat Ledford. As a senior, that’s all I asked for. Stacey Watkins | Thomasville | EnergyUnited |
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