The moment I opened my eyes I knew that something was off but I was too lazy to figure it out.  As soon as I put my head back down on the pillow my mom burst through the door yelling “WAKE UP WE GOTTA MEET YOUR TEAM AT THE AIRPORT”.  I jolted out of bed scrambling to grab my things and In less than 10 mins I was out the door, the sun was shining bright with barely any clouds in the sky, I threw my things in the back of the car and we were off.  When we arrived at Kona airport my team gathered up at the bag check in point, my coach did a head count of everyone and then started to check our bags in.  After, we headed straight to TSA, luckily there was no line at so we flew straight through it.

Thirty minutes s later, we started to board the plane, we flew with Southwest airlines  so we got to sit wherever we wanted, so my team boarded the back of the plane just because most of the people on the flight were in the front.  After everyone boarded the plane, the plane started to shake, then the plane sounded like it was charging up.  Next thing you know we are zooming past all of the little buildings and soon enough we are in the air. 

Finally we landed in Lihue, Kauai.  Everyone stands up as soon as the plane stops to grab their bags from the overhead compartment.  The plane was shaking so much because my team was so excited to get off the plane and explore.  Once we got off the plane we didn’t stop anywhere, we went straight to baggage claim.  Once everyone got their bags my coach went to look for the vans.  After we got the vans we drove to our hotels that we would be staying in, as soon as we finished unpacking the vans, we went straight to sleep. 

I jumped out of bed excited for game day.  Once I was done getting ready I headed out to the parking lot where my team was waiting for everyone by the van, the morning was a little bit chilly with a really light breeze.  The car ride to the gym was an hour long but it felt kind of short, probably because me and 4 of my teammates were talking the entire time.  When we arrived at the gym, it was really sunny and it was getting hot pretty quickly.  You could hear the cheering, yelling and shoes squeaking from the gym in the distance.  As soon as I stepped one foot into the gym you could just feel the intensity in the air, that’s how I knew we would have to fight really hard for winning every single game.  

Time flew by really fast and next thing you know our game is starting.  Every time we have a game we always start with a light warm up.  Normally its pass, set, hit which is pretty self explanatory.  Then, we set up hitting lines, basically just lining up to hit, when that’s done we practice serving.  After 15 mins of warm up its game time, the other team won the coin flip so they got to serve first.  *crack* first server was sent over and my teammate passed it pretty nicely, the set got put up and *BAM* I slammed the ball to win us the first point.  Back and forth points were being scored left and right, both teams fought really hard but in the end we came out with the win. 

 Our next game was right after the first so we didn’t need to warm up, but my team was a little tired but that didn’t stop us from getting the W.  This team was definitely better than the first, meaning we would have to fight really hard.  We had a few good rallies but sadly we lost the points for most of them.  Even though we lost a few points didn’t stop us.  We came back from 10-19 to 25- 23 giving us another win, we got a 2 hour break allowing us to eat lunch.  I ate a BLT and wow it was very good, the bread was perfectly crispy, the bacon was nice and crunchy, the lettuce was crunchy too.   After I inhaled that sandwich, we got to watch our next opponents play and I will admit they were pretty good.

  Twenty  minutes s fly by and me and my team are on the court.  This was the last match of our trip and we wanted to make it count.  The ref blew the whistle and the server was up, the other team’s servers were crazy good and really hard to make a decent pass, they managed to rack up 10 points like 10 mins into the game.  Luckily our best passer on our team was able to make one good pass, that’s all we needed to turn it around.  Finally we have possession of the ball allowing us to make a small comeback 11 – 10.   After a few more points on each side the score was 15 – 20.   We were doing kind of bad but our coach said this “ come on guys let’s come back right now, if we win this game we can go swim at the pool after.”  That woke everyone up, and we started to come back, point after point after point we were scoring, the score is now tied up 20 – 20. 

The other team managed to get three points make the score 20 – 23, we needed to do something quick my team managed to get possession back and we scored four points, making it 24-23, I severed the ball and the other team received it, the set was up and the other team tipped the ball it was falling right in front of me and I didn’t think I would save it, I lunged as hard as I could, I stuck my hand out it was in the perfect spot, the ball bounced right off my hand, I managed to pancake the ball, meaning I stopped it just before it hit the ground.  “IT’S UP” I yelled. My teammate sprinted over trying to save the ball, *BEEEEEEP*  Referee two blew the whistle and signaled that the ball hit the floor on our side, My coach and my team yelled “WHATTTT THAT WAS A PERFECT PANCAKE”.  Ref two nodded no and gave the other team the point making the score 24- 24.  “That  was the best pancake I have ever seen, what do you mean no” my coach exclaimed “That wasn’t a pancake, it hit the floor” the ref two responded.  The other refs talked to ref two and ref one blew the whistle *BEEP* and signaled a junk ball, meaning no point to anyone.  The game continued, the score was back to 24 – 23, we got to serve, my teammate smashed the ball as hard as he could into the other team’s court to score the final point. “YESSSSSS” my team yelled as we were jumping up and down in excitement.

After the game my and my team mellowed down relaxing in the nice cold pool.  For the rest of the trip that’s all anyone could really talk about.  The next day we packed up all of our stuff and headed back to the airport. We had to return the vans, and check our bags back in.  On the flight over everyone was talking about how fun the trip was and how nice the pool was.  When we landed we got off the plane and were hit with Heat Waves. It was so hot in Kona, after that we grabbed our bags and headed home.