A second victory was one point away. In the last seconds of the third game, Redwood fans leapt to their feet, each holding up one finger to signify the match point in a game that would decide who would be crowned North Coast Section (NCS) champions.
Suddenly, the play was live as junior Marguerite Spaethling timed her jump just right to clinch the NCS championship with a kill on an overpass. The Giants swept Los Altos with scores of 25-21, 25-22, and 27-25.
Despite losing nine seniors and two thirds of the team’s starting lineup, the girls’ varsity volleyball team ended with the same fate as last year, winning NCS and losing in the NorCal semifinals against Los Altos. Even though this year’s team was led by co-captain seniors Bailey Osborn and Gina Schumacher, Osborn said that the juniors and underclassmen played a large role on the team’s success.
Osborn was recently named MCAL player of the year and will take the court at San Diego State next year. After losing to Branson in the MCAL finals the experienced hitter said that the defeat gave them a chip on their shoulder that made them want to win NCS even more.
“No one wants to say I lost MCALs my senior year, but it taught me that you need to learn from it and move on and grow,” Osborn said. “If I could say anything after losing MCALs and winning NCS, it was that it was more rewarding in the long run because NCS means a lot more people than winning the league game.”
Osborn is one of Redwood’s only players to win three NCS titles during her freshman, junior, and senior seasons. A four-year varsity player, Osborn has experienced it all.
“It’s different because we are more business this year; it’s more about the sport, not so much about the things that come along with it,” Osborn said, referring to last year’s focus on the social structure of the team. “I think last year was more fun and this year, it’s more like we have to win, you know, because we lost MCALs and we want our season to mean something to us.”
This new work ethic comes from a smaller group of girls. Last year, there were 18 girls on the roster, compared to this year’s roster of 12. According to Osborn, the team was much more intimate this year because of the smaller roster size.
However, according to Osborn, this year, the fan base was disappointing.
“We invited 1,200 people to our NCS Championship event on Facebook, and 20 showed up, so we were bummed,” she said.
Osborn said that despite the minimal fan base, the team did not waiver in their success.
Spaethling, a third-year varsity player, agrees that this year’s vibe is different.
“Last year, we had a lot of girls who were just really good on the team. Their skills were great, but they wouldn’t work as hard to improve them,” Spaethling said. “This year, we brought up a couple new girls from the JV team and some young players who have to work harder to be better, but they have great raw talent, so they are able to work hard at getting those skills better instead of relying on their natural skill.”
Osborn added that the younger players on the small roster stepped up to the challenge over the course of the season.
“We have a really young team,” Osborn said. “Three or four of our starters are sophomores, which is a huge spot to fill coming in as a fifteen-year-old filling in for girls who play in college, so I think all of them have stepped up to the plate. They have really accepted the challenge and have surpassed anything I could have imagined them to do, and I’m really, really happy with the way that they are playing.”
