She went from, “Oh, look, there’s like a ball coming at me… what do i do?” to “oh, this is kinda fun… I might wanna do this long term,” and finally it comes out straight and simple, “I love it.” These are the thoughts Maddie Gallo ‘23 experienced with volleyball over the past decade or so.

Though Gallo’s first time playing volleyball was in second grade, she didn’t realize that she really wanted to focus on volleyball until fourth or fifth grade. That was when her schedules from other extracurriculars started to conflict with volleyball, and that was when she chose volleyball over everything else. From then on, she continued to work hard to get where she wants to be.

Gallo was first introduced to volleyball in second grade when she saw her friends playing in the little leagues. “That looks like fun so I’ll try it,” she said, thinking back to why she started volleyball. “I was terrible, I had no idea what I was doing.” She may not have known anything about how she was supposed to play, but she continued anyway.

Deciding that she wanted to focus on volleyball wasn’t just a love at first sight kind of realization. “I really started to get into it… and [fourth grade] was when I quit dance to pursue volleyball. ” Even a few years after she started playing volleyball, she still didn’t really know what she was doing. But she continued anyways out of her love for the sport.

Gallo also mentioned that something she’d like to change about her life is her height. Seeing as Gallo always grew up a little on the shorter side, it was easy for people to assume she wouldn’t be very good at volleyball. “Someone would say like, ‘oh, somebody go hit,’ and they’d be like ‘oh, but not Maddie,’ or something like that,” says Gallo. Episodes like that were pretty common to her in her early years of volleyball. So in a perfect example of her stubborn yet hard-working personality, she decided that she was going to put in more time towards practice and training for volleyball.

Over this past summer she began running and weight lifting several times a week. Also participating in volleyball camps, tournaments, and clubs outside of school. All out of her love for volleyball, and desire to improve.

“I love it… it’s really fun when you have a great team to share your wins with, and losses,” says Gallo, on how she feels now about volleyball.

She did admit that she does sometimes get a bit moody after a night of bad passes or hits.”I just try to push [out] like those… angry feelings and all that… negative energy,” she says, explaining how she deals with her bad days. Her fellow teammates on the sophomore team also support her and lift her up, and she does the same.

“If like we need someone to kinda step up, like we’re down, then she’ll be that person to kinda like take charge,” says Alaina Greenlee ‘23, a fellow player on the sophomore team at West. “She can like be a leader on the court, and she just kinda like boosts everyone up.”

She doesn’t just boost her team’s energy. She also strengthens their game. “She’s like really good at serving. Like she gets all our aces,” (Greenlee).

Even though Greenlee has only known Gallo for a few months, she’s already really gotten to know every side of Gallo’s personality. “She’s like a goofball but… on the court she’s kinda quiet… Off the court she just like, she’s really funny. and like nice, and she’s a great person,” (Greenlee).

Gallo says that overall, her favorite aspect of volleyball is being on a team. “You kinda support each other, it’s kinda like a net. When you mess up, you know it’s fine. Because you know, your teammates will … support you through it,” (Gallo).

Although their team is only a few weeks into the volleyball season, they’ve already endured and shared so many moments together. “We were just like frickin’ cheering our team on like so well, and it was just so fun,” says freshman Alaina Greenlee, about a game they played against Hempstead this season. Despite their not so good win streak, they’ve still managed to stay enthusiastic at every game.

Her commitment to volleyball might just be a highschool thing for Gallo. She says in college she’ll probably focus more on academics than on volleyball, and is pretty set on pursuing a career in the medical field. She does see herself playing in clubs outside of school in college though, to keep up with volleyball. Nevertheless, she knows that volleyball has always been and will continue to be a part of her life.