Brute.

One

I looked around at my teammates as we stretched. We have a game tomorrow night and so far, we're undefeated. With each game, there's more and more pressure to keep our streak.

"Where's coach?" Hannah asked me as we finished our stretches.

"I have no idea," I sighed as I looked around.

We had already set up the volleyball nets and got all the equipment out, if coach isn't going to show up then I guess running practice is going to fall on the team captain, me.

"Guys, let's play clocks to start and maybe coach will be here by the time we're done."

The girls all got in a circle and I tossed a volleyball to each of them. Clocks is a game where we start with someone on the outside circle who sets the ball to the girl in the center, who then passes it back to the girl who set it to her. The girl in the center then rotates until she's passed a ball back to each of the girls in the outside circle. I jumped into the center of the circle and made my way around until I completed the rotation. By the time we were done playing Clocks, coach still hadn't shown up.

"Let's go ahead and do some serving. We'll go one at a time until each of us serves in-play five times," I explained.

We lined up and took turns serving. It was weird running practice, but I refuse to let my team down.

I turned my attention to the gym doors as I heard them open. Maybe coach is finally here. I watched as four guys walked into the gym and walked over to the bleachers to sit down.

"Hannah, who's that with your brother?" I asked as we moved up in line.

"His friends Chris, Jake, and Jimmy. He asked if he could come watch practice, but I didn't think they'd come with him," Hannah explained, "plus he's driving me home."

Hannah Hallow is my best friend; she has been for years. We've been on the same team since the sixth grade and now we're seniors. When we finished the drill, I didn't know what else to do for practice. The second I had to step up, I completely forgot every drill we've ever run.

"Y'all want to have a race?" I asked.

The girls agreed excitedly, and I looked around the gym to come up with a relay race in my head.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. We'll break into two teams, and you race one at a time, once each member of your team has completed the race you win. First, you run across the gym to the ropes and climb to the top. When you get back on the floor, you'll run up to the net. A ball will be thrown to the edge of the gym. You have to run back to the edge of the court to save the ball and get it back in play, if you don't make the ball back over the net, you do it again. After the ball gets back to the starting side of the net, you dive under the net. You'll drop down into defense position and try to make it back to the starting line without getting your knees touched. You'll tag in the next teammate and that's it," I explained.

Our team has an odd number of players, so the teams can't be even.

"Okay, I'll demonstrate, then we'll have even teams of eight. Hannah," I smirked, tossing her the ball that was in my hands.

I waited until Hannah told me to go and I sprinted to the other end of the gym and jumped to grab onto one of the climbing ropes. When I grabbed it, I climbed all the way to top and smacked the bell before I jumped back down to the ground, feeling a sting in both of my legs. I ignored the sting and sprinted back to the net. Hannah tossed it, and I shuffled back for a few steps before I turned and hit the ball backwards over the net. When I watched the ball land back by Hannah, I sprinted back to the net and dove under it. I dropped down into defense position and Hannah did her best to touch my knees as I shuffled around her and got back to the startling line.