After we walked off the court — before we even got out of the gym, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. It surprised me; I knew I would miss volleyball once it was over, but I didn’t know the disappointment of never playing with the same girls again would hit me as hard as it did.

In the locker room at Orion High School on the night of our last regional game, Coach gave us those final words; congratulating us on how far we had come and pushing us to keep working hard. Each of us seniors gave our two cents worth to the rest of the girls, but the words didn’t mean as much as just being together — knowing how hard we had worked and all that we had gone through together throughout our four years. I love all of those girls.

And for those of us who were seniors ... it was finished. We were done. We would never play volleyball together again, and some of us were done competitively playing volleyball for good.