Your future, our focus
Without ever really explaining what it meant, Shaun Pohlman preached the idea of Trapper volleyball through the entirety of this season.
Then came last week’s NJCAA Division I National Volleyball Championship at the Casper Events Center, and the Northwest College volleyball coach didn’t need to explain.
Trapper volleyball was in vivid display on the court.
It started on day one of the national tournament, with the ninth-seeded Lady Trappers preparing for a 1 p.m. first-round battle with eighth-seeded State College of Florida. A lengthy delay pushed the game’s start time closer to 3 p.m. and the anticipation and long wait seemed to wear down NWC.
The Trappers fell behind two sets to none against SCF, and were in the midst of some of their worst volleyball of the season.
On the sidelines, several Trapper faces looked bleak. Assistant coach Dante Geoffrey could be seen looking down at notes for answers he wasn’t finding on the court. But Pohlman sat patiently, without emotion, in his chair, waiting for his team to either respond or for their championship dreams to vanish.
Later on, Pohlman told me he felt passive following the the quick 2-0 deficit. He believed there was nothing he could say that would propel his players to victory. They would either dig themselves out of the hole, or they wouldn’t.
As fate would have it, Pohlman’s players brought their shovels — and their Trapper volleyball.
Showing a resiliency typically seen in Hollywood sports blockbusters, NWC rallied for three straight victories, shocking the Manatees in five sets. And it wasn’t just that NWC won, but how it won. Three Trappers notched double-digit kill totals, with Aleksandra Djordjevic just missing that mark with nine. NWC had more attacks, more blocks, more service aces and fewer errors.
Djordjevic, Region IX’s player and hitter of the year, as well as a possible All-American when end-of-the-year awards are announced, has been a cornerstone of NWC’s success this season. Yet, when her teammates rallied around her and propelled the Trappers into the quarterfinals, she was the first to recognize it.
“We play for each other, we play for the team,” Djordjevic said after the first win. “We played Trapper volleyball.”
Even those who weren’t on the court with NWC during its amazing comeback appeared to be pining to join the Trappers. Players from other colleges could be spotted in the bleachers and near courtside applauding and gasping with every point.
When the NWC rally was complete, even injured Trapper sophomore Iona Fields, whose cast-bound ankle reduced her to crutches, proceeded to hobble her way to the center of the celebratory mob of Trappers.
When NWC did the unthinkable hours later, defeating top-ranked and No. 1-seeded Iowa Western Community College to advance to the final four for the first time in 25 years, the celebration became surreal.
Here was a team that sat 4-6 on Sept. 6. Here was a team that started a four-game losing streak with a loss to a Colorado Northwestern Community College squad that went 7-24 this season.
Yet, by playing Trapper volleyball, here was a team that downed the best NJCAA Division I volleyball had to offer.
“We just went all out and played Trapper volleyball,” sophomore Megan Huddleston said. “We weren’t scared, we were intimidated, we weren’t selfish. We were just a family.”
After NWC’s five-set win over Iowa Western, a dogpile of Trappers took over their side of the court. Pohlman and Geoffrey pumped their fists in the air and shared a congratulatory hug.
If it hadn’t been for the arm of my bleacher chair catching my jacket as I stood up, I may have joined in the celebration myself. This was a special moment, both for the Trappers of 2014, and of the future.
Although NWC bowed out of the semifinals with a loss to Miami Dade on Friday, the message had been sent. Trapper volleyball isn’t an idea, it isn’t a reminder to play better ... it’s an attitude and an essence that can no longer be ignored.
And with a pair of victories that no one saw coming, the essence of Trapper volleyball showed its true colors — and those colors were red and white.