Desert Vista wins championship for DePriest
More than a month ago, Phoenix Desert Vista’s boys volleyball players were just trying to keep from breaking up, devastated by the death of team manager Alex DePriest.
On Friday, they were holding up a championship trophy, singing to the crowd in pink and playing with the power of DePriest on every point as they defeated Phoenix Sandra Day O’Connor in three sets in the 6A final at Gilbert Mesquite High.
“Winning this for Alex was more important than anything,” said senior libero Benjamin Baldwin, who had a heart with “ADP” in the middle drawn on his shoulder and wore a pink jersey with DePriest on the back.
In early April, DePriest, a talented libero on the girls team, had complications from her Type 1 diabetes and died in Kansas while visiting a friend.
She was more than a stat keeper on the bench for the boys games this season. She was a motivator who wanted more than anything for the boys team to win state.
The team was emotionally spent in its first home match after the devastating news in a 3-0 loss to Gilbert Highland, after which many players sobbed, releasing built-in anguish over the 17year-old’s death.
Since that loss, Desert Vista went 202-1 to take it all.
Pink was DePriest’s favorite color, and students and parents began wearing pink shorts with Alex’s name on the back.
Asked about wearing the pink jersey with DePriest on the back, Baldwin said, “It was an honor.”
“I don’t feel like I can ever live up to her,” he said.
Junior outside hitter Mason Harbertson had a big impact late in the third set putting away points for Desert Vista.
“This entire season was dedicated towards Alex, so in the end this was all for her,” Harbertson said. “We just played our hearts out. We knew this was our last game. It’s all for Alex in the end.”
Coach Clay Webb said after DePriest’s death there would be no lack of effort on every single point the rest of the season.
“She was out here watching us the whole time,” Webb said.
Against a strong Sandra Day O’Connor (39-5-2) team that had some heavy hitters up front, Desert Vista (38-9-1) found extra gears to get to just about every ball that was drilled to its side.
Player were diving, making incredible saves, keeping rallies alive, finishing with a flourish.
“They were just playing well in all facets of the game,” said O’Connor firstyear coach Troy Dueling, who led Anthem Boulder Creek to a couple of state titles. “We had a swing for it in the second set. That obviously would have extended the night quite a bit. But they blocked well. Hats off to them.”
After taking the first set 25-22, Desert Vista trailed O’Connor for most of the second set. Desert Vista prevented O’Connor from taking the set with a block that tied it at 24-24. It then scored the next two points with Nick Heeres’ kill giving the Thunder a 2-0 lead.
O’Connor couldn’t recover as Desert Vista jumped out to 15-4 lead and took the third set 25-18.
“We talked about it all week long, ‘Somebody’s got to go 4-0 this week, and why not us?”’ Webb said. “It’s a body of work. They make fun of me all the time that I say it. But it is. We practice every day like it’s state.” Afterward, it was a relief.
“It was a rough month for Desert Vista,” Baldwin said. “Everyone loved Alex. She wanted more than anything for us to win state. Now that we did that, I think we can finally take a break and have time to grieve.”