Day in the Life of a Volleyball Player
By: Bryn Van Orden
October 17th, 2023
My name is Bryn Van Orden; I am a senior volleyball athlete, and I am going to talk about a day in the life of a volleyball player.
On October 17th, which is game day for the Lady Lions, I woke up at about 7 AM after I snoozed a couple of times. My morning routine consists of brushing my teeth and all the basics including packing my volleyball bag. I double check I have everything I need such as my knee pads, volleyball shoes, spandex, and all the necessities. I then get dressed and put on my black leggings and volleyball shirt along with my travel jacket that all the girls have. Coach Todd asks that we dress in unison for travel days to look put together when we arrive. Our team believes that well dressed teams are the most intimidating. Once I have finished getting dressed, I fill up my water bottle, grab a granola bar, and head out the door to school.
Lincoln County High School has a three day block schedule, and these are labeled orange, black, and white (our school colors). Tuesday, October 17th, was a white day. White days happen to be my least favorite because all of my challenging core classes fall on white days. First period on white days I have American History II. My class is currently studying the causes of the Civil War. I have Calculus second period where I studied derivatives for the day. After the second period, all students have a short study hall period that we call PAW period. PAW stands for Personal Accountability Work time. Right before lunch I have my teacher assistant period where I do little tasks for our art teacher Mrs. Seng.
At lunch I went with my friend to Watsons Market and bought some chicken and rice to eat for lunch. Our lunch time is from 12:14-12:49 which gives us plenty of time to travel to the store and back. After lunch I had my Sports Writing class which was short lived because the volleyball girls left about 15 minutes into class.
Once we get excused out of class we head to the locker room to grab our bags and jerseys and use the restroom. The bus departed the parking lot at 1:30 in order to make it to Stillwater in Kalispell with ample time before the first game so the c-squad girls don’t have to rush. The bus trip was only about an hour so it wasn’t a bad ride. All the seniors earn their own seats on the bus due to seniority, so travel is never that bad for us.
As soon as we arrived at Stillwater, the c-squad girls went into the visitors locker room to change into their jerseys for their game. After the first set of the c-squad game the junior varsity girls will go and change into their jerseys and varsity will do the same after the first set of the junior varsity game. C-squad lost their game in three sets and junior varsity won in four sets.
After the first set of the junior varsity game, all the varsity players including me head into the locker room. As we are changing into our jerseys, we are listening to music together and pumping each other up to play. Before each game our coach Todd Brouillette talks to us in the locker room and we pray. We value prayer before every game. Once we are ready, we will head out to the gym and cheer on the reminder of the junior varsity game.
Once the junior varsity game is over we begin pre-game warmups which consists of 20 minutes to warm up our warms and freshen our skills. Going into this game we know that Stillwater will be competitive. Much more competitive than who we have been playing.
The Lady Lions came to realize shortly into the game that we were right and this is going to be a fun and competitive game. We lost the first set 20-25 and were ready to come back strong in the second set. We earned the second set with the score being 25-14. Stillwater took the third set 25-23, and the Lady Lions took the last two sets 25-17 and 15-11 resulting in a five set win for us. The game was filled with energy and excitement and we players had a lot of fun.
After the game we changed out of our jerseys and packed up our stuff to hop on the bus and head back to Eureka. On the way home we stopped at the store to get a snack. My great friend Kara Stanger and I shared spinach chip dip with tortilla chips. The whole way home we talked about the game. We shared our opinions on how we really needed a competitive game to prepare us for tournaments. We also talked about school, and other things. We bonded with each other.
We arrived back to the high school at about 11:30 pm that night. By the time I drive home, shower, eat, and get into bed. I did not fall asleep until about 12:40. It was a long day for all of us volleyball players, but it was a lot of fun.
Comments