After months of not touching a ball — unless you count a stress ball — I figured it was about time. And why ease back in with a gentle training session when you can just dive straight into a match? My dictionary holds many words, but “sensible” isn’t one of them. Luckily so, because sensible people rarely have good stories to tell.
So there I am, standing among my teammates in Sporthal Steenwijklaan, ready to defy the laws of gravity, coordination and common sense. Our opponents: Punch from Delft. Students — which means young, fit, and not yet worn down by life. In other words, dangerous.
The first set starts off strong. Romy and I serve as if we’ve got something to prove — and, surprisingly, we actually do. She with the precision of someone who’s been training for weeks, me with the stubborn determination of someone who refuses to admit she hasn’t. My shoulder and I finally back on speaking terms — and that line, dear reader, was unreturnable. The blue girls from Punch fell silent. Silent! As if someone had pressed pause on an otherwise rowdy student society. I imagine they were busy calculating how many points it would take to erase this rather embarrassing moment.
Then came the second set. We were still serving, but the poetry was gone. Our passes started developing minds of their own — a sort of rebellion against the logic of the game. Elisa, our setter, was sprinting around like she was auditioning for a triathlon. “Better high in the middle than tight on the net!” she shouted. And as always, we listened carefully. The execution, however… well, somewhere between two passes, that focus must’ve taken a wrong turn.
The third set? A rerun of the second. And the fourth? A rerun of the rerun, only with fatigue as an added ingredient. We kept balls in the air that physics itself would’ve deemed impossible — at times it looked more like a form of air acrobatics than volleyball. Sadly, Punch’s attacks were better placed. Their balls found the floor; ours found each other, the walls, and occasionally an unsuspecting teammate.
By the fourth set, my energy decided to pop into the canteen for a coffee. The rest of the team soon followed. We lost 1–3. A match against Punch, yes — but mostly against ourselves.
Still… somewhere between the sweat, the chaos and the flying passes, I felt something bubbling up that resembled hope. Because behind every failed ball lies a good story. And if there’s one thing Dames 2 are good at, it’s making stories worth telling.
Love,
Milene
