Okay, so we didn't come in first. But, well, I mean, after all, the night before the play-offs, team captain Karen Lattea tore a contact lens (it's the extraordinary finger strength that comes from setting so many volleyballs) and had to play with her glasses, which of course weren't even the right prescription. And Bob Hulteen was still sort of recovering from his car accident. And Jim Rice had some problem with his right rotator cuff (this is not part of his car, but part of his body).
Dolly Arroyo was suffering from a case of shingles (we think she would have been much better off with a case of aluminum siding) and had to sit on the sidelines. Brian Jaudon kept saying, "Did I tell you how when I was in El Salvador I lost a lot of sleep and picked up a stomach bug?" Jim Miller had a previous engagement. The rest of us had no excuse.
On April 22 the Sojourners volleyball team went into the local recreation-league, double-B playoffs in second place, after a two-week break because of Easter. The stands were packed that Sunday night. (Nah, actually, the stands were empty. In fact, there weren't any stands.) In the semifinal round, we played the third-place team. Best out of three won. And, hey, we were, like, really awesome.
We won the first game against them pretty handily. And in the second game, we made the kind of comeback that should make the cover of Sports Illustrated -- or at least a question in the sports category of Trivial Pursuit. Down 12-3 -- and then an even more nerve-racking 14-6 -- we came back to win the game 16-14! Unbelievable. I was on the edge of my sneakers the whole time.
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