Two volleyball players injured during same game

Sarah Earle, Editor-in-Chief

Just minutes before the match was about to begin, the setter of the JV volleyball team, sophomore Andrea Osinkosky, was rushed to the trainer.  Two days later, the game of the season approached against Turner Ashby, and with two of the six starters gone, a new rotation was taught and replacements were arranged.

“I was jumping up to hit the ball in warm-ups, and I landed on the outside of my foot,” Osinkosky said. “[I knew something bad happened] because I heard and felt it crack. I felt like something was wrong. Sometimes I’ll just roll my ankle, but it didn’t feel like that. As soon as I went to the trainer, she told me it was at least a bad sprain. When I saw it, it was dark purple. I thought, “Oh no. This isn’t just a rolled ankle. It’s definitely worse.”

Osinkosky resulted in having a hairline fracture on the fifth metatarsal bone in her foot. She will have to be on crutches for a week and has to wear a boot on her foot for three weeks. Osinkosky will then have to get an x-ray and get informed on the condition of her foot.

“I was really looking forward to playing more games and working with the team more, growing as a team, so it is kind of hard. It’s good because now I can watch our team and other teams, so I get more of the observing part of volleyball, rather than just the playing,” Osinkosky said.

Due to the sudden changes, Osinkosky had concerns about the game against Turner Ashby because there was only one practice to learn the new rotation.

“Figuring out the rotation [was the most difficult part with two people out]. I was wondering about the rotation and what we would do about that [during the game], but we really did a really good job with that. I saw the last couple of games and just going for the ball, I’ve seen a lot of that, which is great. We really needed that, especially if we don’t know the rotation very well. You definitely need to at least have that passion.”

Following that, seconds before the game was starting, the middle hitter for the team, freshman Lily Harmison, hurt her ankle.

“We went to shake hands with the other team and I was in the back. I was running and I stepped on the back of Ella’s shoe. My ankle gave out and it popped, so I went to Glazer and she said it was sprained,” Harmison said. “We had the game [the night of my injury] and I played the game. I went [to the trainer] the day after. I really wanted to play that day and it didn’t feel like it was that big of a deal to me, but seeing now that it is a big deal and I’m playing with tape and I had to miss practice, I probably should’ve taken the day off.”

Harmison had worried about the team’s ability to pull through the Friday night game against Turner Ashby.

“I was really disappointed because I really had wanted to play the game on Friday because it was a big game and lots of people were there,” Harmison said. “I was scared for, not necessarily our team and not the way we were going to play, but how [the team] was going to handle it. It was a big transition, going from having Andrea, who is an awesome setter, and one of our middles. I thought, “Oh man. Are we going to be able to transition and get used to this?”

Even though the team did not win against Turner Ashby, Harmison was still proud of the team’s ability to overcome the sudden teammate injuries.

“I think that the team did amazing and coped with it really well. They made the switch and transition really fast.”