CB Volleyball Cages The Zoo

An emotional Holy Court win sets the tone for the CB women’s volleyball 2015 season. 

Girls tumbled across the floor to lunge at stray ball or leap up to deliver a vicious kill. Falcon Force, encased in blue pigment, gasped for air between leading the pom pom-shaking crowd into cheers. The gym was so hot, the Twix in the snack bar had to be kept in the freezer The cameras swung violently to keep up with the ball as it bounced around the court.

It was a Thursday night, but more importantly, it was the night of Holy Court, the annual showdown between the volleyball teams of Christian Brothers and St. Francis. Fighting their way through five sets, CB’s varsity women’s volleyball team emerged victorious, snatching the last point away from SF to deliver yet another victory.

“I feel amazing,” an emotional Elizabeth Robinson (’16), a four year Varsity starter who had never topped the Troubadours, said after the game.

With years of dominance, it is no secret that the CB women’s volleyball team has the power to bring home championship banners. After narrowly losing section and league titles to El Camino last season, the Lady Falcons are out for revenge this season.

St. Francis was first on that list.

Both crowds were wild with excitement, shaking the gym with their stomping feet as face paint became smeared. The first set went to Saint Francis, but CB returned on a mission in the second set, with libero Ceyenna Tillman (’17) turning the gym floor into her own personal slip and slide with her coverage of the court.

The scorekeepers frantically scratched kills from Ryann Thomison (’17) and Erin Chelini (’17) along with digs from Paloma Bowman (’17) and Erin Clark (’17), while the refs furiously tweeted their whistles and waved their limbs about like windmills. CB suffered a hard loss in the third set, but SF fell back to making errors in the fourth set, prompting cheers of “this is our year” to echo throughout the gym as the fuzz covered Falcon mascot marched up and down the student section.

Vicious kill after kill shattered SF going into the fifth set, as their student section, referred to as the Zoo, became quiet. A faulty serve awarded CB the match point, prompting the crowd to surge onto the court to surround their weeping team, exhausted voices cracking through one last cheer.

“Thank you so much for being here, because we would be nowhere without you,” co-captain Elizabeth told fans.

“We have a lot of great competition…they fought, they worked, they were behind, they fought, they got ahead,” CB’s new head coach Camille Robinson said about her team as they posed for pictures, tears still present. “I think we are going to do some good things this season.”

The Falcon volleyball season has opened, but the Zoo is closed.