ACSC

By Sean Lee

The last year of my volleyball career couldn’t be better than this. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life. Since the beginning of the season, I had the feeling that we could get gold for ACSC, as I have seen the teams last year. With that excitement for first place, we headed off to Indonesia, where ACSC was hosted. It was hosted by a school called SPH, and I was there for ACSC basketball months ago, so it was nice being back. 

When we got there, we attended the opening ceremony. They welcomed us with traditional music and dances. The next day, it was officially when the games started. The tournament was designed in a round robin competition and whoever with the most wins gets the higher seed and from there, it is the double bracket elimination. In the span of three days, we played against every other team and ended the round robin with 6 wins and 1 loss, resulting in 2nd place. That one loss we got was against Faith, the one and only team that we had feared. In the 7 games, most of the time I was on the bench. Bench could’ve been very upsetting and sad, but I had Andy Tan (12) and Ting Yi Huang (12) with me. Because of them, the bench was really fun. We had fun cheering the starters, supporting the team, and taking stats. 

“The bench was way more fun than I thought,” Ting Yi said during our ACSC. 

Also, I got to play some of the games as a replacement for Jaeyoun Kim (12) when he was struggling. On the third day, the double elimination round began, and this was it--where every win and loss mattered. We had a second seed and were going against the 7th seed. The team that was in 7th seed was Grace Tigers from Chiang Mai. We beat them 2-0 and went on to play against SPH. 

SPH had one player who had a really good spike, and I was expecting them to give us a tough game. However, my expectations were wrong. We beat them fairly easily and advanced to the semi-finals. 

The team that was waiting for us was Faith. We had all the motivation to beat them as they beat us last time in round robin. Starting in the semi-finals, the game was best to five, so whoever takes 3 sets wins. In this game, surprisingly, we took the first 2 sets. Everyone was hyped, we were going to beat Faith. However, half way through the third set, the one thing I was most worried about happened. Jaeyoun rolled his ankle and was out for the game. I had to sub in for him and I was terrified. I never expected to play in such an important game for volleyball. Ready or not, I had to go in and play. 

When I got in, I lost 3 points immediately, and I was devastated. Eventually, we lost that set. But it was okay, we were still up by 2-1, and I was very motivated to do good and get the win for Jaeyoun. I tried my best and we won that game thanks to Aaron Andrews (11). I was so happy, we were in the finals. 

We didn’t know whether Jaeyoun could play or not, and I really hoped he could play as I really wanted us to win first place. So, I massaged Jaeyoun’s ankle and tried my best to make him able to play. 

Then, the time came. The time where all our season led to, all our practices were for this moment: The finals against Faith. Thankfully, Jaeyoun was able to play, and all of us were hyped. Me, Tingyi and Kaiji Bok sang FE!N to bring up the energy and it was super effective. The whole bench was hype. Despite the hype and great energy, the set went to the 5th set. This was where it all mattered. Everyone was so focused and finally, history was made. We had won the first gold for volleyball in Dalat’s history. I cannot explain how happy I was winning that gold. All of us went crazy and celebrated. 

This was a trip that I will never forget.