“We always played volleyball in the backyard,” Thompson said of she and her four sisters, her father and mother, who would choose up sides on the regulation net that divided a patch of well-worn grass at their Newport Beach home.
“And it would get pretty fierce, because we would play for chores.”
Bragging rights and other spoils of victory are nice, you see. But Thompson grew to covet the thrill of victory because it meant not having to clean the kitchen.
“Cleaning the kitchen after dinner was probably the worst job,” she said. “Or maybe laundry. Nobody likes to do laundry.”
With Thompson helping lead the way, the Sailors (30-6) have cleaned up this season. They shared the Sunset League title with Los Alamitos, then topped the Griffins, 27-29, 25-19, 25-23, 25-20, to win the CIF Southern Section Division I-AA crown on Nov. 21.
The Tars play host to Huntington Beach tonight at 7 for the right to advance to Tuesday’s Southern California Division I Regional final, from which the winner will advance to the CIF State Division I title match Dec. 5 at UC Irvine.
Thompson had 12 kills, three aces and three blocks in Saturday’s triumph at Cypress College, helping Harbor collect its first section crown since 2002.
“It was just amazing,” Thompson said of the third match against the Griffins, whom the Sailors have now defeated twice. “It’s what we’ve been working for since our freshman year. We six seniors were super excited.”
Glenn assessed Thompson’s play Saturday as fantastic, though he was hardly surprised.
“The special thing about her the last three [varsity seasons] is that the bigger the match, the better she seems to play,” Glenn said. “And she certainly showed that [against Los Al].”
