Athlete of the Week: Belle Palatino '17

There comes a moment in competitive games when the momentum shifts for the last time. After highs and lows in the midst of the match, one final change puts the soon-to-be-winner ahead permanently. These moments are precious and fleeting, with the annals of sports history filled with more missed chances than opportunities grasped

Porter's faced such a moment in Set 3 against Deerfield Academy this past Saturday. Having started their day of volleyball with 12:30 warmups for the fist match against Milton, Porter's was then past 5 hours in the gym. Sure, we had won the first two sets, but fatigue was now setting in and no one was showing any signs of getting a second (or, more likely, a third) wind. It's hard to know what would have happened if Porter's tapped out of Set 3. Would we have gotten enough of a rest in the 5 minutes between sets? Would being too tired to compete at the end of Set 3 translated into being too tired to compete for the remainder of the match?

It was at this point, down 15-19, that Belle Patalino decided that she wasn't going to let tired beat her. Ignoring the burning in her legs, the bruises on her arms, and the lead weight in her lungs, Belle started throwing her body around the court like it was the first set of the day. She willed herself to the ball on consecutive plays, making dig after dig and set after set. When her hitters were too tired to take another swing, Belle attacked the ball on her own (a move referred to as a dump), scoring on 3 of her 5 attempts. After battling all the way back to a Match Point at 24-23, it was only fitting that it would be Bell Patalino stepping behind the service line to rocket the final serve of the game.

Isabelle finished the match with 20 Assists, 3 Aces with no errors, 3 Kills on 5 attempts with no errors, and 6 digs (one behind the team leader Maddie Koval). An impressive stat line made more impressive that it was the second match of the day. What made her performance notable, however, was not the raw stats. It was the fact that once she started pushing herself to dive for the ball despite the fatigue, her teammates followed suit. The excitement that she ignited in the rest of the team was the needed spark to overcome our deficit and our exhaustion. It truly defines her leadership style: by example. Every day, every rally, every point, Belle knows only one way to play, and it's her best.