Senior Sydney Shearn frolicked around her Navy volleyball teammates, clustered around red-cloth tables on the upper level at the Federal House in downtown Annapolis. Gathering together for an NCAA bracket unveiling is a tradition scores of programs across America have done time and time again.
But not the Mids.
“It’s totally new for us,” senior setter Patricia Mattingly said.
Shearn asked each of her teammates what they loved about their time in Navy volleyball. They were close friends who, had the Mids not toppled the defending champion American in the Patriot League final, would have had no more volleyball to play — some for a season, some forever.