Skip to main content

Bouncing Balls and Devastating Defeats

By Anonymous
Keito Watanabe

Suffering in anguish and humiliation, Noah Graves (12), Joseph Hsu (12), Daniel Munson (12), Keito Watanabe (12), Daniel Kim (11), Shion Fraser (11), and Teddy Zimmer (11) sat on the grass outside the Dalat gymnasium as they muttered quietly or simply stared into space. The boys’ varsity volleyball team faced a crushing defeat by Chung Ling, the second best team in the tournament.

It was the second day of the 4th Annual Spike & Strike Tournament, an event hosted by Dalat that consists of a volleyball and soccer tournament during two consecutive weekends. Despite it being a Saturday, hundreds of Dalat supporters came to watch and cheer the Dalat Eagles playing it out on the court. The volleyball team had won both games on Friday and had placed first on their group standings. Even with the loss of the captain Andrew Kim (12), and hitters Sam Huang (12) and Anson Chin (12), they were pumped up to defeat the other teams to win the tournament.

They, however, were not expecting what was about to happen next.

The team gathered around the sidelines as the head coach, Craig Roylance, gave some final advice. After a short prayer, Graves (12) shouted “Dalat!” as the fellow teammates responded by shouting back “Lah Wan!” which, when translated into Bahasa, meant, “to fight.” As the team finished off their chant with a loud “HA,” the starting members headed off to the court. The fateful match had finally begun.

As the match went on, disorders happened within the team. With the brand new line-up, consisting of new players and positions, the team was confused with each play that they dictated. Frustrated and stressed, the players started to blame both themselves and others for each mistake that the team made. The team was in complete disarray; and, as a result, they not only lost the match by a devastating 0-2, but also lost their ticket to the finals. Hsu (12) reflected on the terrible sets that his team just played: “Due to the new regulations and loss of starters from SAT, we had to change our playing style to one we’ve never practiced. These factors affected us mentally, and therefore we were not able to play our best”.

In the end, however, they placed 3rd in the tournament, winning medals for each player on the team. Huang (12) expressed his feelings for this tournament, “It was an exciting learning experience as we not only had fun playing volleyball but also noticed our areas of improvements to prepare ourselves to take the championship trophy home in the upcoming ASCS tournament.”


The volleyball teams fought hard, cried hard, and won hard during this tournament, and they are now all getting ready to conquer their final tournament of their season: the ASCS tournament.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DINGBAT DALAT STUDENT SPENDS PRECIOUS TIME CONJURING UP SELF-REFERENTIAL SENIOR SCRIBBLE RATHER THAN GATHERING LEGITIMATE WORK

By Anonymous
Yusoof Monawvil PENANG, MA - As the deadline drew near and the stars aligned in the night sky above the majestic waters of the Strait of Malacca, one particular Dalat student—Yusoof Monawvil (12), despite a plethora of school events to select and report on—opted instead to spend a remarkably well-wasted 24 minutes staring at a blank Google Docs page, fruitlessly drawing up and shooting down brainstormed ideas.  In a moment of sheer and undeniable epiphany, Monawvil deemed it only fitting to self-referentially satirize his own ingrained incompetence and dingbattery. Commenting on the flash of insight, Monawvil quoted himself, saying: “It all just kinda made sense. I went on DISCourse to look at the little rubric thing Ms. Grad and Mr. Hieber posted, and I checked if I was following all of the guidelines... And I technically am/was; [N]ot like there’s any specific direktive [sic] prohibiting self-quoting.”  In a turn of events, Monawvil did come to find his self-quoting en...
6 comments
Read more

"Spikeball, Swimming, and Sickness: The Remnants of Senior Sneak" by Ee Rynn Ong

By
“Guys, I think we’re here,” said Jonathan Ooi (12) as he peeked out of the lorry to catch the first glimpse of our Senior Sneak location. This year’s Senior Sneak was held in Nomad Adventure, Gopeng, and the organizers planned many activities for the Class of 2026, ranging from traditional games like congkak and batu seremban to adrenaline-pumping ropes courses and whitewater rafting. These scheduled activities proved to be some of the best highlights of the trip, but top of that, the seniors were also given some daily free time to chat, explore, and relax. Josh Stevens (12) had come prepared for this with two spikeball nets, which immediately attracted attention from people eager to spend time in the outdoor sun. The next five days saw spikeball veterans and newcomers alike, spending their precious one and a half hours daily around the unassuming circular net, smashing the yellow ball in hopes of a victory.  Caleb Evans (12) was one of the newbies to spikeball, learning how the g...
Post a Comment
Read more

“I Miss Her” by Nikhil Pillay

By
While most people had a fun week for mid-semester break, whether it was spent with family, or with friends on impact trips, no one had a more emotionally confusing week than Judson Kenneth Robert Nosker (12).  In the light of recent events, Judson, despite all odds, had gotten in a relationship with one of his classmates, and as the break started, he had started to spend a lot of time with her. While with her, he started to experience a new level of joy and completeness that he had never felt before. In the words of Judson Nosker, “The first half of the break was good, but the rest of it was horrible.”  The reason for such a quote and the roller coaster of emotion was because half way through the break, disaster had struck. Judson’s girlfriend had gone on a trip with her family to Thailand, leaving Judson all alone. For the rest of the week, Judson was in a state of longing for her presence.  His friends have reported numerous occasions when Judson would be sitting with t...
Post a Comment
Read more