A Hard-Earned Victory

This weekend was definitely a long one!  Okay, yes, it was three days long, but what I really meant was my volleyball tournament on Saturday.  I was gone for twelve and a half hours!  It was the first volleyball tournament of the season, and we were nervous yet excited.  Our first game started out great, but we lost our confidence and ended up losing.  Because of that first loss, the team wasn't as "into it" as it should have been.  However, morale shot up again when we won our third match.  Because we had lost our first two matches, we were then put into the lower bracket.  However, we still had a shot at third place overall.
A couple matches later, and we were playing for the bronze metal.  The team we were up against was the same team we had beaten earlier on, so we were really confident.  I don't think I've ever seen my team more pumped and energized than they were those two games.  We all knew what was at stake.
The winning point is something still imprinted in my mind.  I set the ball perfectly, and then another girl on my team had a perfect hit, putting it right where nobody on the other team could reach it.
Everyone was thrilled.  The bronze medals we got were really cool.  They symbolized an important first-tournament third place finish and about ten hours of hard work.  Reading this, you guys might be thinking, "Third place....  What's so cool about that?"  To my team, though, it means a lot.

(If you're wondering what AAU (the letters in the middle) stands for, it's an acronym for Amateur Athletic Union.  It's the organization that runs all the volleyball tournaments.)