One thing that rarely happens to me at L’s volleyball game is meeting former students. The two high schools that most of my eighth-grade kids attend are not 5A schools like Mauldin High, so we never play them. This year, however, Greenville High (where probably 45% of my students end up attending) ranked up to 5A, so we now face them a few times a year. The first time was at a weekend tournament that I was unable to attend. The second time was at Mauldin, but I was shuttling the Boy here and there. So tonight, we all went to Greenville High for the final game between these two schools.

There were lots of familiar faces. First and most significantly was E, who was in my English I class four years ago and on L’s travel volleyball team (along with H, another of my students). At weekend tournaments I would sometimes see E and H huddled together, papers spread about, talking to each other.

“What are you girls doing?”

They would both look up at me with mock anger: “Studying for your test, Mr. Scott!”

But E wasn’t the only former student I saw. In total, I’d guess about eleven or twelve kids came up to me to let me know how things are going in high school.

“Guess what, Mr Scott? I have a 98 in English 2!” J, a student from last year, boasted with a smile.

“Do you have all As?” I asked C, who is now a junior.

“Of course!” came the laughing reply.

The game itself was a grueling, five-set slog. Our girls won the first set 25-13, which got them a little too confident. Greenville jumped out to a lead in the second set, and at one point it was 13-19. Our girls didn’t give up, though, and fought back to make it 16-19 before falling apart and losing the set 17-26. The third set went to Mauldin, but just barely: at one point, our girls were down 4-9, but they battled back and won 25-22, going up two sets to one. Of course, Greenville tied it at two sets each with a 19-25 fourth-set victory. Mauldin jumped out to an early lead in the deciding fifth set, going up 5-2 then quickly adding two more to make it 7-2. But as our girls like to do, they gave most of it back and were only up by one, 7-6. Ultimately, they kept a lead, increased it a bit, and won the final set 15-12.