The final whistle blows, bright flashes are seen all around as photographers scurry to get the best picture, the screams of the crowd silence the gym, a large entanglement of bodies surrounds you as hundreds of fans rush the court, and tears of joy run down the cheeks of the newly crowned section champions. These are the moments every athlete trains for, the moment they dream of.

As part of the Pitman High School Varsity Volleyball team, I, Mady Coughran, got to experience that moment, knowing that everything we have trained for all year had finally paid off. The 16 players sitting on the bench on November 21, 2014, get to celebrate an experience like no other.

We left at 3 PM on the 21st and headed up to UC Davis for the Division One Section Championship game. Excitement filled all of our stomachs as we approached the gym. For many of us, this would be the biggest game we will ever participate in. When I walked into the gym through the tunnel, my stomach filled with butterflies, thousands of little tiny butterflies fluttering around in my stomach as I gazed up at the amount of people, the bleachers, the scoreboard; it seemed too good to be true.

A few minutes later, Pleasant Grove, our opponent, entered the gym. They all looked like such amazing players, and they too had a player committed to the University of Oregon, like our very own Lindsey Vander Weide. Our faces were white, like we had just seen a ghost. We all knew this was going to be a difficult game and that we would have to fight, but we all hoped that the odds would fall in our favor.

We began to warm up, the usual partner pepper, then ‘Coach on Five’, a warm up drill in which the players practice defense off of a coaches hit. They took their six minutes of full court, and I thought to myself, “If we play our A game, we can take them in three.” But boy was I wrong.

After one of our best starts of the post season, we won the first game 25-20. We entered into our huddle and discussed that this team, Pleasant Grove, will come back and fight and that we would need to continue to fight until the last whistle is blown. But sometimes plan don’t always go as followed.

With terrible starts to both the second and third games, Pleasant Grove was up 2-1, and we had to make the decision then and there that we were going to win this game and take it to five, and that is exactly what the team did. With a ferocious start and dominating ending, we won the fourth game 25-15, and it was time for game five.

It seemed like every point draggedon. This game was only to 15, and we scurried along point by point to maintain a lead. 12, 13, 14 points, game point, and then the final whistle. The bench and I sprinted to the court and hugged everyone around us, photographers gathered all around to get pictures of the San-Joaquin Division One Section Champions. The gym was so loud everything was silent as tears of joy ran down the faces of players, parents, and fans. I can assure, this is a day none of us will ever forget.