Freak practice;
Trinity loses players.
Trinity University
San Antonio, Texas--February 28, 2002
The Tigers were going into the second Conference seeding tournament knowing they would be missing one middle and their Libero, both away in Albuquerque, NM for a band concert. Tromboners Bryan Quilici and Travis Thompson were already gone, so practice would consist of getting used to a new line-up.
Trinity senior setter Jeff "I-forgot-my-ankle-brace" Ray arrived at practice (late) only to have Dugan "not-too-bright-to-lend-out-your-ankle-brace" Sheehan lend Jeff one of his active ankles in order to "strengthen" his own ankle. Not long into practice, with Dugan having been moved from the outside to middle and Alan Barta filling in the outside position, did Dugan come down on someone's foot and roll his ankle effectively ending his tournament hopes.
Now accidents, as unfortunate as they are, do happen so practice continued. Coach Bachman decided that the team had done enough hitting and should concentrate on a little bit of defense. The tem worked on some serving/passing/digging drills but the players minds were still on their fallen comrade. It was decided that the team would do some diving, the logic being if you learn to dive then you will do it in a game. If you do it right then you wont get hurt.
Unbeknownst to the team, just prior to practice the janitors, who tend to avoid the gym like the plague, had mopped the floors with crazy glue. Half way across the teams diving traverse of the gym, Jay Woodworth dove, stuck to the ground and hit his head on the floor. Reese "Lead-Foot" Borsuk pointed at Jay and laughed. On Justin's next dive, he too stuck and hit his face on the floor.
As the team stopped to talk about what a freak practice they were having and check on Dugan, Sr. Captain Jeff Conrad talked to himself about how well he dove and how dumb the rest of the team must be for getting stuck on the floor. With the team turned talking to Dugan, Jeff Conrad took one more dive.
Four stitches in the chin later, after an 8 hour drive, playing in a wretchedly horrible facility with one wounded outside playing middle, one right side playing outside, two non-starters starting at the outside and right side respectively, and the worlds slowest Libero, Trinity did not do so well in their second conference tournament.
GENERAL INFORMATION