Tonight, L’s volleyball career ended. She won’t be playing in college, and we’ve all decided to use the money we would have put toward a final club season to other uses (like adding some time in Greece this summer for her senior trip). So six years of volleyball came to an end in the second round of playoffs against a team from Clover, South Carolina.

We’ve passed the exit to Clover countless times over the years. It’s just before the turn off highway five to Aunt D’s house — Aunt D, who helped take care of both Nana and Papa, who has a heart that gives endlessly. We commented often on how funny it was that there was a town named after our dog. Strange how these little turns appear unexpectedly in our lives: L’s final game in a town we’ve known and had a private joke about for years but which we never would have imagined visiting.

In a sense, that’s been the common theme of L’s volleyball career. To begin with, when she mentioned in sixth grade that she wanted to try out for the middle school volleyball team, I was a little surprised. She’d played soccer at the Y as a kid, but she wasn’t interested in continuing it. If she devoted her free time to anything, I would have, back then, assumed it would have been dance. She always seemed a bit more showy than athletic as a young child. But once she made her decision to try out for the team, nothing could stop her. Not even not making the team the first year. If anything, that increased her determination.

Once she became obsessed with volleyball, I never would have imagined she could be part of a state championship team. Such occurrences are fairly rare: one has to be at the right place (or rather, on the right team) at the right time. But two years ago (almost to the day), her high school team took the state championship.

There was a time it seemed unimaginable that she wouldn’t play volleyball in college. She seemed so dedicated to it, and she was improving by leaps and bounds each year. But it was not to be: she didn’t get any interest from any of the colleges she wanted to attend, and she made the decision that she wouldn’t choose a college just because she could play volleyball there.

Of course, there were the initial expectations about this year. “We’re not going to win any games this year!” she declared after the first few practices and warm-up tournaments. And it seemed like they wouldn’t be able to get their game together, but the did. And they finished second in the region.

They got further than they ever expected; they achieved more than they thought they could. But that last game — it was tough to go out like that. They just couldn’t get things together, achieving the same dismal results in the first two sets: 14-25. I thought they’d fall apart completely in the third set, but they got themselves together and took the game to a fourth set with a 28-26 win in the third. In the fourth set, they had the same trouble they had in the first two sets and lost 17-25.

It was a tough way to end a wonderful six years of volleyball, and the Girl had difficulty holding back the tears. She broke down after last year’s final game as well. She said it was out of sadness for losing the seniors: “It’s the last time I’ll play with them.” I think in the back of her head, though, she knew in a year it would be her turn. She wants to put herself forward as a no-nonsense type of kid, but I think she’s got just a little of my sentimentality in the mix.