The 4 Cloves Game

Hello blog readers and people of the internet!!

If you've read my introduction post from my blog, then you will know that I used to play Volleyball competitively back in primary school and throughout year 7 and 8 of high school!

Well, in this blog post, I'd like to talk about an amazing experience I had back in year 7 with my volleyball team! Keep reading to find out...

It was one cold wet Wednesday morning on the school grounds of Melbourne, Australia.

Our grade was divided into teams of sports, and I decided to join the volleyball team. 

The practice was super hard, and my team and I struggled to get as swift as we can, and the day was coming closer than ever. We had weeks and weeks of sweat and practice to prepare for the big day, and the day finally came...

We flew off on the bus early in the morning to compete against other schools in a gymnasium nearby.

My team was guided by one of my homeroom teachers, Mr. Farrer, who was also very skilled at volleyball. He walked beside us as we shiver and shake in the cold midst air, slapping each other's arms to prepare for the pain that we will be facing.

As we entered the gymnasium, we saw packs of our sworn enemies, giving us the faces of growling wolves, getting ready to beat us. 

My team and I sat next to them, frowning. We were so worried that we won't even make it past the first game, but Mr. Farrer told us to have fun no matter what happened, and he lifted our spirits back up.

A few moments later, our school's name was called up. 

My team and I stood tall and confidently walked into the volleyball field with heaviness on our shoulders and the grey clouds hovering over our heads, knowing that our moves weren't perfect yet.

As the whistle blows, the team against us served the ball.

I saw the ball soaring in the air, going right in my direction. My head panicked, I felt my face going warm, and I felt a rage of stress bubbles in my head. ''What if I miss?'' I whispered to myself.

I smacked the ball right across the volleyball net. 

SCORE!

Everything felt like a blur at that very moment, my ears were ringing as my teammate's cheered for me. I see my teacher from the corner of my eye jumping in the air and punching the air with happiness...Only for it being the first point of the day. Still got a long way to go, I thought to myself.

The day went on and on, and somehow, in each and every game, we managed to have absolutely killed it. How in the world are we doing this?! We sucked at practice, the other teams seems to have a grand amount of confidence, and we stepped foot on the court, flooding with nervousness.

Our group was probably the group with the absolute least amount of confident of confidence out of all schools attending. On a scale from 1 - 10, our confidence was 0,5, maybe a single droplet of water in physical form.

As we played our last game against the last school, we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the scoreboard. We didn't even realize how we had won every single game and match we had. We were on top of the leaderboard! Winning each, and every game. 

At the end, our school ended up winning and we were off to the next round which was quarter finals. 

This has gotta be pure luck. Like a 4 leaf clover luck. Or at least we thought...

We ended up going to states and finished it off there about 3 motnhs later. We didnt end up going into Nationals which was held in Sydney, but the experience itself of getting to compete with top athletes from all over Victoria was already an experience my team and I will never forget.