I'm supposed to be here

fyi: this post is pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month :)

"¡Yo quiero más!" This is was what my setter said to me while she looked me in the eye, after the first ball she set me I was left blockless and the crowd went completely berserk. Yesterday was one of those days. The journey to get here was long and not without stress but I'm exactly where I am supposed to be.

We had a pass and serve yesterday morning and after the hour flew by we went in to the locker room to watch some video of the other team. After the video ended another video started... I recognized it immediately. I instantly got chills:

"I don't know what to say really, 3 minutes til the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today and either we heal as a team or we're going to crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, til we're finished...

....when we add up all those inches, that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing"

Al Pacino's speech in Any Given Sunday, so appropriate at that moment in time. The anxiousness of starting a new season, the anxiety of playing a team that on paper is supposed to be better than you, the excitement to be on this journey with new people standing next to you. But everything he said in that 4 minutes and 30 seconds was everything we needed to hear. It's all about those few inches, who's willing to go that extra inch, what are you going to do for another inch, and do you trust that the person standing next to you is going to go that extra inch for the team, because they know that you would?

We came out in front of our home crowd of 600 people, (who by they way were absolutely insanely fun to play in front of) and lost the first set, but came back and won the next three. It wasn't at all an easy feat but we battled for every point and fought for every inch and came out on top. Since April when I tore the ligaments in my ankle I've been waiting for the chance to get back to 100% and I think I may be close. When it's game point 24-23 and the other team calls a time out and my Coach looks at my setter and tells her to set me the ball, that's feeling I've been waiting for and yo quiero más.