On September, 28, 2019 the league volleyball tournament was held at Fort Riley Middle School. There were eight  teams there but the Spartans only played 4 of the eight teams. Keep reading to find out more. 

The league tournament is held for volleyball teams from Junction City to us the Emporia Spartans. The teams played hard but the Spartans played harder. According to the coach, “ For the hand we were dealt (meaning waiting outside of the gate for over an hour) we were still able to bring our A game and win two games in a row”. While they started out in pool play then they made it to the big leagues, bracket play. 

The Spartans started out by playing Junction City. The game was awesome just one point scored after another. POW! You could hear the ball being served to the other side. Junction City all call MINE at once, they all ended up in a dog pile on the floor. None of them got to the ball in time. The ball was an ACE!!! (A serve which lands in the opponent’s court without being touched) Then the Spartans shouted their cheer “ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, EVERYBODY HIT THE FLOOR, ACE!!!” as they cheered for the server. One after another the Spartans racked up their points, with the other team scoring the occasional point. By the end of the match it was 23 to 19. The Spartans were two points away from winning. Out of nowhere right before the Spartans were going to serve Junction City’s coach called a timeout,they were trying to ice the server(freak out the server so the server messes up).  The Spartans were ecstatic they were ready to go back out on the court and win. Junction City’s plan did not work and the Spartans served two more ball and won the first match. They went on to the second match.

One by one the Spartans points went flying up. One after another serves went over the net and to the other side. Soon the Spartans were at 23 to 20 they were neck and neck in a battle for who would go to brackets. 23 to 21, 23 to 22 then, 23 to 23. You could practically feel the tension on the court because both teams had what it takes but both teams knew there could only be one winner. Then the tables changed, the Spartans got the ball back. The score changed to 24 to 23. The Spartans were in the lead, all they needed was one more point. One more point and the game was theirs. One more point and they would go on to bracket play. The last serve, the deciding point, were they going to win or lose it all. BAM! The ball was hit, it went flying across the court. The other team hit it right back. Then the Spartans got an awesome bump, set, spike, and smashed it right in the other teams face. That was the winning point. The Spartans had just won the game!    

The other games just flew by after their win against Junction city. They went against Eisenhower and beat them, got into bracket played Anthony and lost the game, and lost a second game to Abilene. So in all, the Spartans got third in pool play and fourth in bracket play. According to coach Raini, “the passes we had that game were just amazing, and I don’t think that we shanked one pass”.

Overall, I think that the volleyball tournament was a huge success and that even though we did not get first, second, or third. We still played to our best ability and did very well. According to the coach, “I am going to really miss coaching you girls and I hope that you all go out next year”. I hope that this story encourages you to go to one of your schools games because seeing that someone that we know who came all the way just to support us makes us want to win even more than we did before(just saying, it makes a world of difference.)