McKinley’s Mariah Makuakane made a nice run to get to the ball and pop it up just in time.
Just in time before she went headfirst into the taught rope near the pole holding up the volleyball net.
“It clotheslined me in the mouth,” she said after Wednesday’s match against Kalaheo, pretty much unscathed.
Makuakane, however, did hit the gym floor hard and was down, in pain, for a few minutes while being attended to by trainers. A TV cameraman wheeled his chair up to her about two feet away to get a close-up.
When she got up, it was apparent she was not seriously hurt. She held her lower back, which took the brunt of the impact, with both hands before giving a double shaka sign to her teammates when she got back to the bench.
“I thought another person was going to get it,” Makuakane said of the ball that she kept in play but that a teammate could not get to after her. “I didn’t know how close I was to the pole.”
The Mustangs won the match 25-17, 25-10 to improve to 2-0 and keep the Tigers winless at 0-2 in the Oahu Interscholastic Association.
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