Stars Align

No F**king Way.

Dani~

I am quite possibly having the best game of my life. Honestly, we all are. This is our last match. We are tearing shit up today. We cruised through the rest of the bracket and once again meet up with Japan. This time, I'm not getting a lot of hate from most of the arena. I hear some but it's not like last time.

We're absolutely dominating Japan. It feels good to say that. It feels good to think that we'll be done after this set and that we can all go home.

Lauren passes it back to me and I get up and hit the ball over the net. It lands in the back corner. One more kill on the night for me. A ball is thrown to me and I bounce it a few times before waiting for the whistle and jumping to serve the ball.

A few more points and this championship is ours and it secures us as the #1 seed for the Olympics. What a freaking dream! They get the ball back to us, hitting it straight down in front of me. They of all teams should probably be careful of who they're hitting to. Wouldn't want them to disqualify themselves for something stupid.

I get up and switch out with Claire. I high-five the girls down the line and stand in the back. Lauren comes out and joins me too. She nudges me, "Geez, nice stat line."

I look up at the screen and see my stat line for the night. Not too bad. 30 kills. 5 aces. Not too bad, Dani.

"Yeah? Look at all of those assists you have. We're playing one good match today."

"Let's bring it home."

We gain a few more points before I go back in for the front row. Five more and we're done and we can officially say that we've won and qualified for the Olympics. Mik passes the ball to Megan who sets it over to me.

I tip it over and get us another point. We're all on a high. We meet in the middle, "Let's do this thing."

We can all feel it. That's how amazing this feels. We go back to our spots. Mik serves the ball over again and I go up on my own to block the ball from coming over. Two more points.

She serves it over again and I watch the ball as it gets set to their outside hitter. I back off the net and watch them hit it over to Carolyn. Megan backsets it to Carly and she hits it down the line. This is it.

I look over at my coach as he takes it all in. He sets his clipboard down and nods. He knows we don't need a special play for this point. Mik serves it one last time and they give it back to us. Megan sets me and I hit it cross-court. I watch as it hits the back corner. The rest of the team storms the court, surrounding us all as we start to celebrate. Gold confetti and streamers fall from the ceiling.

This feeling will never get old. I will never be able to describe it to someone who doesn't know what it's like because it's indescribable. It's everything you'd think it'd be and more.

We all hug and soon t-shirts and hats are passed out to all of us. Our coach pulls me and Mik aside to talk to a few people. We all put on a headset and listen to the reporters for ESPN. "Coach Kelly Sheffield and two of his star players, Dani and Mikayla are here with us after winning another world championship. Are you all used to winning at this point?"

"Nothing tops these wins," I say.

"There's no comparison between regular-season games and bracket games. These are what really count and we go out there every day and show off our talent," Mik adds.

"Coach, we didn't know if you noticed, but both of these girls broke some records of their own." We look at each other. "Mikayla, you had 14 aces on the night, a career-high for you. Your last high was 9. And Dani, in three sets you had 32 kills. That is insane. That's a career-high for you in three sets and you've broken that record too. The number to beat was 28. Coach, are there any words to describe these two and your team?"