Post-Sandy, Long Beach Girls Volleyball Squad Will Play

Story and Photos by George Wallace. 

Some teams face challenges with a shrug; others fold. And some teams treat a challenge as an opportunity. The Long Beach High School girls volleyball team earned a spot in the latter category this season. 

After an uncharacteristic 4-10 record in their new conference last year, they bounced back to 10-4 and made the playoffs in Nassau County Conference A-1. And if that resilience wasn’t enough, the team insisted on regrouping for their first playoff game this Saturday against Garden City despite the devastation to their homes, school and community after Hurricane Sandy.

“They want to get together,” coach Kerri Rehnback told Patch this week. “It will help morale.”

Morale is something precious in these trying times. Rehnback lost her home to the hurricane on Oct. 29. Most of her Long Beach High School girls volleyball players have been displaced or relocated. They’ve haven’t practiced and some are without uniforms. But yet all of them have one intent: to play in the playoffs.  
“I was able to text message most of them, and the bottom line is the girls want to play,” Rehnback continued. “So I’m there for them. We weren’t going to play unless it was everybody’s decision, and they agreed.”

Co-captain Katherine Meyers said all her teammates have big hearts. “They’re supportive and welcoming of each other,” she said. “That’s the attitude you need to have a team that plays together. And that attitude starts with each player.”   Rehnback said this team has chemistry, unity and mutual respect, and that there’s no mystery about this. “This is a team that knows how to work together,” she added. “We work to foster team leadership across a succession of seasons and rosters.”

But in another sense, that resilient spirit is an intangible that she’d like to catch, like lightning in a bottle. “In the end I don’t know how to make that happen,” she admitted. “If I could duplicate it every year, I would.” 

Mystery or not, it’s a spirit that will hit the hardwood floor at the neutral site of South Side High School in Rockville Centre at 11 a.m. Saturday.