🏐 The shrill sound of a whistle cut through the crisp morning air.
The Wolves stood shivering because of the snow-dusted track outside the Hood River Training Complex, even inside the gynmasium. It was barely seven a.m., and the sun was still climbing over the frozen treetops.
"Good morning, athletes!" shouted Coach West, her voice echoing across the courts "Today's about data. Speed, jump height, reflexes, serve velocity, and pass consistency. You'll be grouped by position, not by school. We want cross-comparison."
A low murmur spread through the line of players, curiosity mixed with nerves.
Connor rubbed his gloved hands together, trying to keep warm. The field beneath his shoes crunched with frost. Around him, players from every school adjusted their clothes, Cascade in silver and black, Northgate in deep red, Riverside in white and gold, Jefferson in green, and Summit in black.
Noah exhaled sharply beside him. "They're really gonna make us do suicides in the cold, huh?"
"Better than drills at six in the morning," Dylan said, stretching.
"Barely."
Sam smirked. "Think of it as a character-building exercise."
"Yeah," Noah muttered, "my character's freezing to death."
Connor hid a laugh, rolling his shoulders as the first whistle blew.
⸻
The warm-up wasn't light. Wind sprints, shuttle runs, vertical leap tests, and reaction timers, all measured by motion sensors installed along the court
When it came to the vertical jump test, the groups gathered near the gym doors. A thin pole with plastic tabs — the Vertec — stood tall, ready to measure their reach.
"Setters first!" Coach West called.
Connor lined up behind Aiden (Cascade), Malik (Jefferson), and Toby Grant (Summit).
Aiden stepped up first. Calm, centered. He exploded upward, touching the 309 cm mark, impressive for his height.
A few murmurs rose around the line.
Connor's turn came next. He inhaled, swung his arms, and jumped.
The plastic tabs rattled, 306 cm.
Not bad. Not the best either.
Aiden glanced sideways, faint approval in his eyes. "Pretty close."
"Guess we'll see who's faster in drills," Connor replied.
The test continued, spikes measured at serve velocity, passes graded by stability. Connor's average serve clocked at 94 km/h, Jordan's at 96, while Malik Price from Jefferson, shorter but explosive, launched one at 102.
Noah blinked. "That dude's 5'6" (1.68cm) and just hit triple digits?"
"Compact power," Dylan said. "Like a spring."
By the time they finished the tests, everyone's legs were burning.
Inside the gym, a large display projected the cumulative stats, verticals, serves, reaction times. Cascade sat at the top of most categories, Jefferson close behind. Ridgefield hovered mid-pack.
Coach Reynolds didn't look disappointed, just thoughtful.
"Data's just numbers," he said quietly to them. "It's how you use it that matters."
⸻
🏐 For position drills the teams split across four courts for technical work.
Connor's group was Setters + Middles, focusing on rhythm, tempo, and read timing. On the adjacent court, the outsides were working on serve-receive under heavy spin serves.
Coach West herself led the setter drills.
"Setters," she said, holding up a ball, "are not just hands. You're rhythm. You dictate pace. Today, we break tempo barriers. We'll train adaptive systems, meaning you'll be setting to hitters you don't know."
Noah, across the court with the receivers, gave a thumbs-up to Connor.
The first exercise paired each setter with a different middle from another school. Connor found himself with Eric Donovan, the 6'4" (1.96m) freshman from Northgate Bears.
"Hey," Eric said, easygoing smile. "Let's make it fast, yeah?"
"Got it."
The whistle blew.
Connor's toss was quick, high but clean. Eric hammered it straight down, barely giving the libero a chance to react.
Coach West's whistle followed. "Nice tempo, Ridgefield! You read his approach early!"
Aidens's group went next, his precision was surgical. His sets were lower, sharper, quick-tempo 31s that almost blurred through the air.
Connor watched closely, eyes narrowing. His Match Analysis system faintly pulsed.
[Analyzing: Opponent Rhythm Pattern]
[Data capture: 18% complete]
He blinked, instinctively tracking Aidens's hand shape, his elbow alignment, the split-second delay before release.
Even without full activation, the system was learning.
When it was Connor's turn again, he tried to mimic that sharper tempo, slightly Higher, closer to the net.
The ball snapped into Eric's palm and exploded downward.
Eric turned, surprised. "Yo, that's fast."
Connor allowed a small smile. "Learning from the best."
Aiden caught that from across the net, raising a brow.
⸻
The cafeteria buzzed with energy. Trays clattered, voices bounced off the high ceiling, and the smell of hot soup and pasta filled the air.
Connor sat with his usual group — Noah, Dylan and Sam. Harper was seated next to them but with some managers from the other teams.
Harper had her camera out again, scrolling through morning shots. "I got a picture of you two during the jump tests," she said, showing Connor and Aiden side by side midair. "You look like rivals in a sports magazine."
Noah leaned over. "Perfect. We'll caption it 'The Rivalry Begins.'"
"Please don't," Connor muttered.
"Too late, already writing it in my head," Harper teased.
Dylan chewed thoughtfully. "You think we'll scrimmage Cascade again here?"
"Probably," Mason said. "They always end camps with a full rotation scrimmage. Round robin, most likely."
Connor's stomach tightened slightly at that thought.
The Cascade Titans. Again.
⸻
After lunch, the drills shifted from individual to team systems.
Coach West gathered them around a whiteboard. "We'll rotate between offensive sequencing, block timing, and serve strategy. You'll train in mixed teams today — get used to reading strangers."
Connor ended up in Group C:
• Connor (Ridgefield) – Setter
• Malik (Jefferson) – Opposite
• Ryota (Jefferson) – Libero
• Eric (Northgate) – Middle
• Toby (Summit) – Outside
• Carl (Summit) – Outside
It was chaos at first. The rhythms didn't match, and Malik's quick tempo clashed with Toby's wide approach angles.
"Tempo three! Tempo three!" Connor called mid-play.
"Bro, that's slow!" Malik yelled back, grinning.
"Then adjust your approach!"
The rally broke down, ball in the net. Everyone laughed.
But as they kept running it, Connor began adjusting, shifting tempos, learning the hitters' approach cues. His sets grew smoother, faster, synchronized.
By the final drill, their rally flowed almost like a real match, Malik hammering line, Eric blocking, Ryota covering perfectly.
When the whistle blew, Coach West smiled. "That's what I want to see, communication evolving. Ridgefield's setter, nice job adapting."
Connor nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead.
In his peripheral vision, his HUD flickered again.
[Pattern Recognition: Adaptive Rhythm — Level 2 Achieved]
[Match Analysis Data Integration: 26%]
He didn't fully understand how deep the system was going, but he could feel it, his reads were sharper, decisions faster.
⸻
Dinner was quieter that night. Fatigue hung over the team like a fog.
Back in the cabin, Connor sat by the small window, notebook open, jotting quick notes from the day, timing cues, serve angles, what he'd learned from Aiden.
Noah dropped onto the couch beside him, hair still damp from the shower. "Man, you were killing it today. The coaches were actually watching you during the last drill."
Connor shrugged. "Trying to keep up."
"Keep up? Dude, you are keeping up."
Dylan leaned out from his bunk. "Noah's right. You're syncing faster than half the setters here. Even Aiden noticed."
Connor paused. "He did?"
"Yeah," Noah said, smirking. "He was watching you during the serve rotation. Kinda like, 'Wait, that freshman's copying my tempo.'"
Connor couldn't help but grin. "Maybe I am."
"Good," Noah said, stretching. "Means we're not invisible anymore."
The cabin lights dimmed. Outside, snow began to fall, soft, silent, endless.
Connor looked out the window, mind replaying every set, every serve, every flicker of improvement.
He could feel the shift.
The gap between potential and realization was narrowing, inch by inch.
And somewhere, his system pulsed faintly, waiting for more data.
[Match Analysis: Partial Activation — Awaiting Full Opponent Dataset.]
He smiled to himself.
"Soon," he whispered.
Then the snowstorm deepened outside, and Hood River's night swallowed the sound of laughter and dreams of the Wolves' long climb ahead.