Your future, our focus
POWELL, Wyo. - Looking at the 2010 Trapper Volleyball win-loss record is a lot like judging a book by its cover. The numbers don’t tell the story that’s buried in the pages of a season touched by questionable fortune.
For Coach Flavia Siqueira and her team, volleyball is a rock-solid tradition. The Trappers were the 2009 Region IX North champion, ranked 11th in the nation last year; 20th the year before. In February, Siqueira was one of only two community college coaches given a Thirty Under 30 Award by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.
Fate decided to intervene in that tradition this year. Four players (more than half the starting lineup) were sidelined by injuries before the season was half over. Coach Siqueira has never had a Trapper player suffer a major injury before, now she’s dealing with four--all caused by freaky little missteps.
The team’s win-loss record has taken a hit, but those who know volleyball understand the story of this season isn’t in the numbers. It’s in the individual tales of player courage, coach ingenuity and team spirit that surfaced.
Freshman Gabriella Fabri of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for example, played with a torn meniscus in her knee. After pursuing a tipped ball in a late-season match, she stayed on the ground too long. Even though the bench looked like a triage unit, and Fabri claimed she was okay, the coach decided to keep her out of the game.
While Siqueira was talking to another player, Fabri ran in as a sub anyway. Siqueira couldn’t call her back without being hammered for an illegal substitution. Fabri played the rest of the game, leading her team to a win. It wasn’t an easy win. It was one of those bruised and bloody, point-by-point struggles, but it showcased the die-hard character of this team.
With so many missing starters, Coach Siqueira had to dig deep to devise some clever strategies for covering the holes, which outnumbered the players. That’s why Gianesi Tarafa, Sandrina Hunsel, Jessica Deny and Phoibe Fetu all trained for different positions. Some even trained to play two positions.
The season lineup didn’t make it easy. Siqueira scheduled her Trappers against more than 15 of the top-20 teams in the nation. That’s the caliber of competition her team plays. Period.
At this level of competition, it’s hard, frustrating and sometimes embarrassing to play a position you’ve never played before. Especially when you know how good you are on your familiar side of the court. But the coach got her players to reach beyond what they knew about themselves, to find more than they thought they could be.
That’s the story that doesn’t get written into the record books. It’s the story that sings to the crowds in Cabre Gym and to the Trappers who found themselves playing the impossible season.
It's a good read.