HERMOSA BEACH, California — It was a hypothetical at first. There was solely an area of 4 days between the AVP Denver Tour Sequence and the Hermosa Professional Sequence this previous July. Savvy Simo and Toni Rodriguez, after a finals run in Denver, opted to take the following Monday and Tuesday off. A lightweight observe Wednesday additionally completed early, as Rodriguez nursed a perpetually sore knee. Simo referred to as Josh Glazebrook, the AVP’s Senior Vice President and the person everybody calls after they have a query, request, or drawback.
“If I must make an damage sub,” she requested, “when would I would like to do this?”
“Proper now.”
“Are you able to give me an hour, please?”
An hour was given.
Simo had initially solely referred to as “on a hypothetical,” she stated. Now she wanted to decide. Their schedule over the following weeks was packed: Challenges in Portugal and Canada, doubtlessly an Elite16 in Montreal, capped by the Atlanta Gold Sequence, probably the most vital occasions of the season.
“Each single occasion was extra vital than Hermosa. They had been all extra vital to us and our targets,” Simo stated. “[Rodriguez] needed to make the powerful resolution to not play, which was not simple. It’s Hermosa! I’m sitting there, ‘Who’s even on the town? Who’s even right here?’”
Anybody not in Hermosa was both in Gstaad for an Elite16 or Wisconsin for the Waupaca Tour Sequence. It left Simo in a determined scenario. Her boyfriend, Evan Cory, had an thought: What about Megan Rice?
How had Simo not considered that?
Rice, a 24-year-old rookie, had opted to not journey to Waupaca. It’s an costly journey, and there hadn’t been anybody she thought she may win with, particularly after falling within the Denver qualifier only a few days prior. Her birthday, July 4, was additionally that weekend.
“I used to be simply going to be residence for my birthday,” she stated, “watch AVP Hermosa, it’ll be nice.”
When Simo referred to as, asking for a last-minute substitute, it was a non-decision: “Yeah I wish to play!”
Simo made the decision to Glazebrook.
AVP Hermosa had a brand new 13 seed.
“Simply a chance away”
At first blush, that group would have been simple to peg as a dream draw for anybody of their path. Right here was a pair who had precisely one mild serve-and-pass between them and nil competitors reps. Rice was taking part in in simply the fifth AVP of her profession, and her first true primary draw. She’d been knocked out in qualifiers in New Orleans, Huntington Seaside, and Denver, and bowed out within the first spherical of the Virginia Seaside Tour Sequence. She’d competed on the seaside briefly at LMU however had a stop-start profession combined with accidents and a pandemic. Then she took a 12 months off.
“I used to be fairly burned out as a result of I used to be doing indoor and seaside on the identical time, so my low season was the 2 weeks in between seasons. Despite the fact that everybody was like ‘You must play, it is best to play!’ I used to be like ‘No, I’m going to do that by myself time. If I really feel like, after taking a summer time off and I nonetheless wish to play I do know it’ll be the appropriate timing.’ I’m glad I did,” Rice stated. “Within the late fall after I was getting the itch to play once more I used to be like ‘OK, I’m out of form and it’ll be actually exhausting however meaning I wish to play and actually wish to do it.’”
Solely a handful of individuals, then, had a legit understanding of simply how good Megan Rice was at volleyball.
Simo was one in all them.
She had competed for a loaded Torrey Pines Excessive Faculty group that may win three straight Palomar League titles and back-to-back CIF championships. Why wasn’t there a 3rd?
Briefly: Megan Rice.
“Megan wrecked me in highschool,” Simo stated of Rice, who was a 12 months youthful and a standout exterior hitter for Redondo Union. “My group is legit. Megan is available in no matter spherical of state. We had received our league, received CIF, we’re going to win state. We had a stable lineup. Then Megan single-handedly beat us. Wrecked us. It was probably the most devastating loss to this present day. Megan ended my highschool profession. Always remember.”
It’s factor she didn’t. Their paths would combine right here and once more, each indoor and on the seaside: Simo as an out of doors for UCLA, Rice as an out of doors for Santa Barbara after which LMU, Simo as a courtroom one expertise for the Bruins, Rice as a courtroom one blocker for the Lions. Despite the fact that Simo went 5-0 towards Rice in faculty, that reminiscence of Rice racking up kill after kill by no means left Simo.
Now, as a group in probably the most historic AVP places, it was time to wreck another person. Rice, regardless of the dearth of ends in her first 4 tournaments, “felt like I used to be proper there, that it was simply a chance away to compete with a few of these good primary draw groups,” she stated.
She made probably the most of her alternative.
Down went Lili and Larissa Maestrini, a 21-15, 21-15 win that was beautiful in its ease. Down went Macy Jerger and Megan Rice, the champs from AVP Virginia Seaside.
“After that,” Simo stated, “the flood gates simply opened.”
They swept Brook Bauer and Katie Horton within the quarterfinals, then swept Lexy Denaburg and Carly Kan within the semifinals. In a blink, Megan Rice, in her first Professional Sequence primary draw, 10 days after being eradicated within the qualifier of a Tour Sequence, was within the finals of AVP Hermosa Seaside.
“It didn’t actually shift my perspective,” she stated of ending second in her first profession primary draw. “It felt validating that I’m not being delusional, that I’m proper there. I used to be practising towards these groups I wish to be competing towards, and I used to be beating them in observe, which I do know isn’t competitors, however it nonetheless felt like ‘Am I loopy? I’m proper there.’ I had been again into practising and into lifting and I bought a full-time coach. Whenever you make investments the time and the cash, you actually wish to see the outcomes.”
“It’s been a loopy summer time”
It was solely the start. When Rice had made the choice, within the fall of 2022, to start competing once more on the seaside, she “did so at a bizarre time,” she stated. “So many individuals had been partnered up.”
Conversations with Emily Day stalled when Day introduced she was pregnant. She bounced round, taking part in with whomever was obtainable and gifted: Kahlee York in New Orleans and Huntington Seaside, Denaburg for Denver, Simo for the serendipitous Hermosa Seaside. After a finals run by which she hit .408 (ninth for the event), blocked 17 assaults (third), aced six serves (seventh), and hit solely 16 errors in 130 makes an attempt, Rice was all of a sudden thrust atop each participant’s listing as a blocker they wanted to play with.
When Betsi Flint wanted a sub for Julia Scoles for AVP Atlanta, Rice was a straightforward alternative.
“She’s simply purchased in now,” stated Flint, who additionally coached Rice at LMU. “She has a giant arm, has an incredible serve, is nice at drawback fixing, and that’s what you want at a excessive degree.”
In Rice, not solely did she get a gifted sub, she additionally bought a participant who’s as shut a comp to Scoles as there may be on the AVP. Listed below are two bodily, bruising gamers, with swings that don’t typically get dug, who serve effectively and supply a considerable wall on the web for Flint. It’s unattainable to say what might need occurred had they been in a position to undergo only a single observe, however storms rendered Thursday unplayable, in order that they went in blind.
They took a ninth anyway.
The calls continued to return: Brook Bauer wanted a accomplice for Manhattan Seaside, and on solely a day or two of observe, they completed seventh. Emily Stockman wanted a blocker for Chicago they usually promptly claimed a ninth. Rice teamed up with Bauer once more for Laguna, alas competing with the identical accomplice twice, they usually made a run to the finals.
“She deserves to be taking part in in the primary draw. That’s the extent she’s at,” Simo stated. “She may simply be in the primary draw, which is wild, having by no means been via a qualifier. Did she get in a really unconventional method? Yeah, however she bought alternatives and made probably the most of it.”
The legendary AVP emcee and now host of a Los Angeles Lakers studio present, Chris Geeter McGee, has a life motto: “My greatest factor was when preparation and alternative meet, and they’re going to meet, you higher be able to take a hack,” he stated when he appeared on SANDCAST. “You higher be able to go. And that’s the entire thing as a result of in life, whether or not it’s enterprise, sports activities, you’re gonna get a chance, however you gotta be prepared.”
Rice knew she was just one alternative away. She had executed the work. She employed a coach, enlisted a coach, bought herself into form. When the chance got here, within the strangest of how, she took her hack.
Now she’s the 2023 VolleyballMag AVP Rookie of the Yr. Now the alternatives will proceed to search out her.
“It’s been a loopy summer time,” she stated, laughing, “to say the least.”