EAST MANATEE — Their picture graced the home page of the school’s Web site on Monday afternoon, under the title of Pirates of the Day.
The windows of their cars have become easels, where the words “District Champs” are written across side windows and back windshields in white marker.
Their once blank banner hanging in the school’s gymnasium now has “2009” stenciled in white, and the girls are planning on signing a volleyball to put inside the trophy case.
Such are the spoils for winning a district championship. And after four years and a pair of near-misses, the girls on Braden River’s volleyball team are getting to experience what it’s like.
Tonight comes perhaps the most important reward — a 7 p.m. home game against Ruskin Lennard in the first round of the Class 4A-Region 3 tournament.
“I’m just really excited,” said senior setter Regina Aluise, whose Pirates are 21-6, “that it’s actually at home.”
Regional volleyball play has never been to Braden River — though Braden River has played regional volleyball just about everywhere else.
When the Pirates made the regional bracket for the first time in ’07, they had to travel to Bartow.
They became the school’s first team to win a regional match last year when they defeated host Haines City.
Their reward?
A trip to Arcadia.
“This year, it’s at home,” Aluise said, “where we’re a lot more comfortable.”
They’re at home because they won the District 10 championship last Thursday at St. Petersburg Lakewood — a goal the girls set when they began congregating in the summer.
“We focused more, knowing we’ve come so close the past few years,” said senior hitter Lauren Powell. “We pushed ourselves that much harder so we could come home with the championship.”
Written on a dry erase board at the beginning of the year was a list of the Pirates’ district opponents. After each district game, the team would meet in the bleachers and write either a ‘W’ or ‘L’ next to each one.
This season, they were all Ws.
“It was all we talked about from the beginning,” said coach first-year Steve Haugh. “We were completely focused on trying to win the district for them, because they said they’ve had chances in the past and they couldn’t quite come through with it. And it was one the thing the four seniors (Allison Martin and Rachel Hubbard, both of whom played a key role in the team’s championship run, round out the Pirates’ senior class) wanted to accomplish before they left.”
A cluster of Braden River’s students made the trip up to St. Petersburg last week, and serenaded the team bus with honking horns while the Pirates, district championship trophy in tow, made their way back to east Manatee County.
“We were excited,” Aluise said.
Now it’s time for a new goal — getting into the regional championship game, something Braden River has never done.
Much to the delight of the Pirates, however, this journey, for the first time, begins at home.
“We still want to be proving to anyone that we’re not just the new school,” Aluise said. “We’re the new school, but the new school with power.”
“We’ve made a name for Braden River,” Powell said, “and people know who we are.”
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