Emily Shea '21 Recruiting Profile

After being a swing player on varsity my sophomore year of high school, my hopes were high for being a varsity starter for my junior season. Giving my all at every try out and open gym, my confidence was building and I was expecting the best-case scenario to happen. Practicing with varsity, scrimmaging with them and feeling as if I was becoming a part of that team, was taken away as I found out that I was placed on the junior varsity team along with all the other juniors. I felt as if all of the odds were now stacked against me for even seeing playing time on the varsity level. I toyed with the idea of quitting, but not playing at all was way worse then being a junior on JV. So I took the team I was placed on and went with it. Giving 100% at every single game and practice drew my coaches eye to me. He then decided to switch things up and began to give me the chances I knew I deserved.

It then turned into a competition between me and another girl for the varsity middle blocker spot. At that point in the season, we had lost every game we played. Once he made the decision to give me the position and be able to play in both sets, the margins in how much we were loosing by got slimmer and slimmer. Until we won our first game and from there, the wins kept coming. Since it was late in the season with only 6 more games to play, we all wanted to see how far we could go. The next 2 games after that were wins that we never expected to get. It came to the last game of the season. Our record was 3 wins and 15 losses. No one expected a team with only 3 wins to beat a team who had the 10th seed in our conference. We won the first set 25-23 and we knew that it wasn't going to be so easy in the second set. To everyone's shock we won the second set 25-15, with a 10 point deficit.  That game I had my season high of 4 blocks and had the game winning overpass kill. I also lead the team with 15 blocks for the season.

No one expected me to get through the discouragement I felt in August, to becoming a varsity starter in November. I showed how hard work and dedication will always prevail and it can show just how great things can work out. I made some mistakes while playing whether I missed a serve or couldn't pass a ball up, but I avoided the biggest mistake I could have made that season which was quitting and letting the people who didn't think I could handle it win.