The Last Step (on the Stairway to Heaven)

Fourth Set

As always in our confrontations with Venus, the fourth set announces a fierce battle.

I take place on the field at the beginning of the set with a little refreshed body. Our team consists of Axel-Rafio (wingmen), Terou-Steeve (centers), Maheanu-Me, with Maka playing the libero. I feel the composition is right since Vaana and Tapu weren’t at their best that night.

Venus started this set on the same level as they finished the previous one. They switched between Thierry and Marere for scoring whil we had a more diversified game, but they grab the upper hand to the first timeout : 6-8.

As predicted the game intensifies and Venus is showing their motivation to even the score. I give some good settings but from time to time, the spikers either get blocked or they shoot the ball out of the field... Venus hence increases its lead 12-16.

Maybe I was feeling the pressure, maybe it was simply the physical strain from the week, maybe it was all that but I feel I’m so nervous and tense I start losing ground again. Axel and Rafio both feel my nervosity and try to settle me down and keep me in the game : "don’t worry, we’re still ahead", "calm, relax", "stay with us, we need you".

The last one especially gave me a lot of courage and I felt I was progressively coming back into this. The only problem was will I make it in time ? Venus was steadily cruising to grab this set as we reached 17-21...
It’s not we were lacking anything from my opinion. The passing line was good, I started making good choices again, the spikers also performed well and Axel even blocked Thierry once...
I don’t know, maybe they were just playing better ?

The end of the set was near and the tension and pressure were flowing in my blood like a gushing river. Nonetheless, I guess they also started to feel it and we managed to retreive 2 points on their trail : 21-23.
We serve, Marere gets the ball and shoots between our blockers : 21-24.
It was our turn to serve, and they give the ball to Thierry who spikes right on my knee. The ball rises in the gymnasium but didn’t touch the roof and Maka manages to deliver the ball to his brother Axel who ended the point by a nice spike : 22-24.

Now we still had one timeout to take and it happened when we were about to serve. Usually you don’t take a timeout during your serving periods, it’s oftenly taken to disturb the opponent’s period of serving but in our case, should we lose the point the timeout would be going to waste so it was actually a good time to take it.
Here we get the instructions that Maheanu will serve in order to prevent Venus from setting the ball to Thierry who was in the back line. We were clearly looking for a spike from their wingman Marere. We were thus told to take the option on him and to form a 3-man block. Axel and Terou were on the front along with me, so it was actually a good lineup.
Back on the court, Terou gets substituted for Vaana. Eventhough the substitution can look a little weird considering the height Terou can reach, it only makes sens if you take into account he’s been playing for 4 sets and he wasn’t performing well on the block.
Anyway, the point went just as planned as the ball was given to Marere. We form our 3-man blocking line with Vaana on the left, Axel on the right and me on the middle. The ball is slowed down by Vaana, Rafio manages to pass the ball and I set it to Axel. Axel crumbles the ball on Marere’s external hand and we won the point : 23-24.

Same players and same configuration for another point. Maheanu’s floating serve really did well as the ball is given to Marere again, but he’s on the 3m line. As we form our 3-man blocking line, our eyes meet and I think he was like "oh my god, 3 blockers again". Anyway, he spikes and Vaana manages to kill him on the net : 24-24.

The crowd goes crazy at this point and maybe that’s why Venus couldn’t take a timeout (too loud to ask to the 2nd referee)...or was it they already used them ? I don’t clearly remember, sorry. Anyway, same player try again as Marere is given the ball once again. This time I’m the one to block him and I was so delighted because I couldn’t catch him during the 2 previous sets ! We took the lead 25-24 and the fire has been started again in this set !
Marere gets the ball yet again (gotta thank Maheanu for his serves) and this time he tries to spike on the line where Axel is blocking, and the ball hits the ground.

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out !!

We just won the set, the match and captured the title !!

Explosions of joy burst right after the referee whistled the end of the point (and of the match) and I let all the pressure go out in a shout/cry of relief. We circle our coach for his great job on taking the timeout at 22-24 and just keep shouting our happiness.

This victory crowns a season of hardships and rough training sessions. It’s really unbelievable, who would have gambled on me as a setter at the beginning of the year ? First year as a setter and already one title. Just wow...still can’t realize it even after 10 days !!

The victory is ours and it really was a collective one since everyone hit the playground, and everyone participated in scoring. Volleyball is a collective sport and that match was a perfect illustration. Thierry had over 70% of the balls and he had an incredible success rate (only got blocked once if memory serves) of almost 100% (maybe 95%). Yet his astounding performance couldn’t make his team win in the end. I’m not minimizing his role during his final (he played like a Pro, and I heard he was leaving for some team in France in Pro B next season). Just that it wasn’t enough.

Special Thanks

All that’s left for me here is to thank the people who followed the Saga to the end, especially :
 Pand@ for her psychological coaching
 FX for tactical advices
 Last but not least Lucie for her unwithering belief in me.

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed reading it as well as I did writting it and I hope to hear some comments from you now (yeah you silent reader) !!

PS : I’ll upload the regular press coverage of the event a little bit later.