Upon Further Review

What do you expect me to do? Regal you with more stories of the Wilson Memorial volleyball team as they prepare for their Final Four appearance Friday in Richmond?

Do you want me to pat your collective hand, Fishersville, look you in the eye and say, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be OK”? You know, that things are going to go the Green Hornets’ way and they’ll come home with a title?

Do you really want to read about, again, what the Hornets bring to the table? Do you want to hear me say Kala Guy is a gem of a player you’ll be talking about long after she’s left?

Or do you wish to hear, again, how Noel Bartley thinks her team rocks? Thinks volleyball rocks? Thinks coach Kim Claytor rocks?

Do you want to read, again, how Bartley really likes using the work “rocks”?

Or would you rather read how, like, Guy prefers, like, to say the word “like” like about 100 times during an interview? Is that what you would, pardon the pun, like?

Do you want to write how good things always seem to happen when Julia Aronson is in a game? Or that Tiffany Crosby does a great impression of the Fonz after some kills?

Would you, with all due respect to Guy, like that?

Or maybe it’s time to talk about how this team, this Wilson Memorial volleyball team, is just your typical high school team that act’s less like a team and more like a family? Want me to tell you what it’s like when they’re all together at practice? Or how the inside jokes are mind-boggling and, that if you try to figure them out, your head will hurt?

Maybe I should get you “in the know” that while a Group A title is, no doubt, in the back of their heads, the Green Hornets have a bigger fear?

Did you know that? Did you know that it’s not completely about hardware? Did you know it’s all about so much more?

Maybe you heard that these girls don’t want this season to end? That Bartley (without using the word “rocks,“ believe it or not) has been dreading this season since last year?

You remember last season, don’t you, Fishersville? Do I have to remind you? When your Green Hornets, after losing that all too familiar number of seniors — seven— were picked to be scraping the bottom of the Shenandoah District barrel? Remember when this current crop of seniors were juniors and needed that extra year to rebuild? How about how they just reloaded, won the Shenandoah, only to fall in the Region B quarterfinals? You don’t remember seeing any tears shed after that loss, do you?  Because they knew the best was yet to come. Heck, they said as much.

It was so obvious, Claytor didn’t put herself in the running for any Nostradamus awards when she predicted they would be good and said, “If I could start practice for next season, we’d be the gym tomorrow,“ after that 2007 regional loss. Remember that?

And that’s the big fear in Fishersville. Not Strasburg. Not Gate City. Not Auburn. The big fear is that this group of girls, this group of friends, will have to part ways come this weekend. Either Friday or Saturday, the end match cometh, or so they say.

And then you’ll know it was never about the state title or getting this far. It was about family and not wanting to say goodbye.

It’s about everybody breaking into laughter as Trisha Bruce puts Danielle Dove and Bartley, without any hesitation, into a headlock when asked to for a photo. It’s about everybody watching Guy try not to laugh for 20 minutes, so she can strike a tough-girl pose for a photo. It’s about the other nine players doing their best to make sure she couldn’t keep a straight face.

So yeah. Final Four trip? Awesome. State title? Fishersville has its fingers crossed and, let’s be honest here, this Hornet team has a good a chance as the other three left in the hunt.

That’s all fine and dandy.

Then you go to practice, see them laugh and giggle together and look at Claytor watching them, trying to figure out how she’s going to let go when it’s all over.

And, for seniors in any sport, that’s what makes Richmond, Salem, Radford, or wherever your sport’s state title is held, both a dream come true and your worst nightmare.

Just ask anybody who has played the game, any game — you can’t extend the season any more.

That hurts more than any loss.