Two sets had flown by and the crowd at Chaparral High School gym had all but disappeared. It was time to go home, as the Notre Dame Prep volleyball team would surely be the winner of a quick third set and finish the match.

 

The  Saints had an impressive start. ““I think that we were all pretty hyped up, pretty ready,” said middle hitter Sophie Sydenham. "We knew this was going to be like a tough game, they’re big rivals and they had a good season up to this point.”

“We came in determined to dominate,” said  middle blocker Nicole Shuhandler.

 

The fans left in the gym had grown disinterested and distracted. High schoolers were sitting and talking to their friends instead of watching the game.

 

After NDP won the first two sets 25-19, momentum shifted. Chaparral (8-2) sent the match into a nailbiting fifth set before Notre Dame (7-2) won.

 

Outside hitter Amanda Stivrins of Chaparral was not about to be swept in threesets. Hit after hit, kill after kill, Stivrins reminded NDP why the Firebirds were ranked No. 1 in the league. She led her team to beat the Saints 25-16 in the third set. The Firebirds were flying again.

 

After a 25-18 win in the fourth set, Chaparral had ignited the crowd once again. What seemed to be a quick sweep in three turned into a nail-biter with five full sets. The student section had become rowdy, the parents were yelling, and the girls on the court were playing impressive volleyball.

 

“We needed to make some adjustments,” said NDP coach Sara Fox. “They’re a good team, they have two amazing outsides and a good setter.” “They’re great, so we tried to figure out how to stop those kids.”

The race to the last 15 points was excruciating. Both teams fought tooth-and-nail. Stivrins hit incredible spikes off her setter, Kate Van Houten. The hits were almost certain kills, if it hadn’t been for NDP’s gifted libero, Butters.

Butters dug those hits and passed them handily. The rallies between the two teams looked like choreographed dances.

 

Tensions built with the set tied 14-14. Timeouts felt like eternity. NDP scored first to get up 15-14. A hit and a block later, the ball landed out-of-bounds. NDP emerged victorious.

 

Fox believed this game taught her team a lot. “One of our big focuses is to truly play our style of game and not to let the other team dictate what we want to do,” she said. "This game was full of lessons to learn. We can capitalize on them and do better next time, but the win is definitely great.”