Defense to the Top - Tri Duong
Tri Duong is a 8th grader from the Boston Latin Academy in Boston, MA
Is it even worth playing? Am I good enough? These questions constantly rang through my head during my journey in volleyball. However, I now have people reassuring me that this is where I belong, but it wasn’t always like that. Originally, I wanted to play baseball and basketball, but during the pandemic, my sister invited me to play volleyball, which would have a lasting impact on my future.
When my sister introduced me to volleyball, she invited me to play with others at an open gym on weekends, where she showed me how to play this sport. At first, I wasn’t the best, but everyone has to start somewhere, right? My sister's close friend reached out to teach me how to play. His name was Danny Ho; people say he was the greatest of all time. Throughout my journey, he and my sister supported me and many others. After two months of playing volleyball, I decided to try out for my high school volleyball team.
When February came, the volleyball info session sparked interest in me and many others. In March, after the info session, there was a thing called captains practice after school where the captains of the volleyball team came in and helped us with our fundamentals before tryouts started. When tryouts began, there were four aspects the coach was searching for: speed, jump, serve, and receive. I was extremely nervous that I wouldn’t make it, however, afterward, I was confident with my performance. Looking for a paper with a list of everybody who made it, I scanned the list for my name. I made Junior Varsity! I was ecstatic that I made the team–I let everyone know that I made it.
The coach for the volleyball team had set our positions on the court, he thought I was a great fit to play the defensive position–Libero. We had two different groups for Junior Varsity; the home and away teams. I was worried that I would feel awkward because I didn’t know that many people on my team, but I was glad that many close friends of mine were playing with me. After the final practice of the season, We had pizza as well as a scrimmage with our coach's teammates for a club he plays for during the summer–which caught my interest later on.
With the arrival of summer, Boston Knights, a 9-Man Volleyball club that my sister and coach play for, caught my attention. I decided to play them. There were rankings based on skill levels. I played on the C team with my school’s team captains. Over time, I saw myself improving and had more confidence playing. I didn’t get any playing time, but that didn’t bother me. They let me practice with them but didn’t allow me to play because I was only 13 years old. Our team didn’t do that great, but I had a lot of fun during the season.
As school creeped around the corner. It was the beginning of the girl's volleyball season and I became the manager for Junior Varsity. This is where I met my coach, Coach Nick. He’s a great coach, but he was intimidating and occasionally scary. I met some great people like the captains of the boy’s volleyball team. I had a great team that was very good. I was proud of them and made me laugh from time to time. I was happy, but at the same time, I wanted to give up and quit. I didn’t want to come back because I wasn’t having fun–which was the whole part of playing a sport. During the girls’ season, I told Nick and the team that I was going to take a break. They all supported me, but I still had some fire lit inside me but it was about to burn off soon. When I returned near the end of the season, they were doing great. Coach Nick said I had potential and told me to try out for Club Volleyball for one of the best clubs in New England, SMASH VBC. After lots of thought, I ultimately decided to try it out during winter. At the end of the season, the JV team went 12-5. I was glad and proud of them all at the end of the girls’ volleyball season.
The true start of the Volleyball Club Season has arrived. SMASH was in Newton–extremely far from my house, but I still decided to go. During tryouts, they gave us shirts with a number and they told us to get in a line to take a picture. The tryout consisted of multiple drills that we had to do to show our skill levels. After the tryouts, I was feeling nervous and wasn’t confident in my performance. Several days later, they sent an email with the results, but there were callbacks, where you were invited back for a 2nd day of tryouts. I was in that group. After the callbacks, I was nervously waiting for the email of the results. After some time they sent out the email that I made the team. I was thankful that I made it and it made everything feel better about volleyball. After a couple of practices, they decided on the teams for the upcoming tournament and there were 2 groups: 14’s Thunder, and 14’s. I had made the 14’s team, which was the better of the two. I was playing the same position as my high school team. For the tournament that was coming up, our group decided to play in the 15’s division. We went 2-1 in our pool–making it to the gold bracket, leading us to 4th place out of the 8 teams in the division. After months of playing, we had 3 more tournaments left and we started to play in the 14’s division. This tournament called Mohegan Sun was our free entrance to Nationals and we would have to get 1st but unfortunately, we only came in 2nd place, losing to Mill City VBC. In the last two tournaments we played, we made it to finals with the same team we had lost to in Mohegan Sun. We went against them two more times and we won both tournaments. We all decided to go to nationals in Orlando Florida.
With the Boy’s Volleyball season coming up we had an info session to talk about the future season ahead. It was the same thing as last year telling us more information in more detail. After a week of the info session captain’s practice was arriving and the captains of the volleyball team had the practice to show the fundamentals before tryouts started. We had a week of captain's practice and tryouts were now approaching. I was nervous because people have been saying I wouldn’t be able to make the Varsity team, but I had to prove them wrong. The day after tryouts we got the final results and my name was on the Varsity roster. I was satisfied with my work and realized my dream to become the number one volleyball player in the state. Afterward, I will be the number one player in the world–I will be on the top. The season is coming to its end and we have been doing great this year so far having an amazing record.
Realizing I wanted to be number one, I would have to make sacrifices and put in 100% of my effort. I still have a long way to go until I’m on the top.
