Athletes this year were excited to play in the fall sports season at North, including freshman volleyball player Deniz Devecigil. This would have been her first high school volleyball season as a freshman making the c- team. Everything was going great until an injury caused Devecigil to miss out on the entire season she had been working hard for.

“Volleyball was my emotional escape and it was always something I could go to and I didn’t really have this emotional outlet,” Devecigil said.

Devecigil has been playing volleyball since she was eight years old and described volleyball as her favorite sport. She has played volleyball at the YMCA and her club team MOVA, but this year was her first year playing for FHN. During the summer, FHN held volleyball open gyms where girls could have extra practice before tryouts and meet the other players. During open gyms she noticed her shoulder was starting to bother her when she served. It got so unbearable that she needed to have others serve for her when it hurt too bad.

“When I would lift my arm it would send a shooting pain down my arm when there was an impact such as serving, and it would burn if my arm was up for a longer amount of time than four seconds,” Devecigil said.

After tryouts were over and she made the team, she later realized that the pain might be more than she thought so Devecigil decided to get her shoulder checked out. After the visit to the doctor, she realized that she had multiple tears in her labrum and would have to sit out of practices and games for two weeks. As the injury got more severe, she later realized that she would not be able to play in the season at all.

“When I realized I couldn’t play, my first reaction was like ‘Oh, it’s okay. I will get back into it eventually’ but I was shocked when I found out that was not the case,” said Devecigil.

Freshman team players were all sad when they found out that they had lost a player for not just two weeks, but the whole season. Jada Keller, one of Devecigil’s best friends who played on the JV team was worried for her.

“At first I thought it wasn’t something as severe, but when she started going to the doctor and talking to surgeons it became more scary for her,” said Keller.

Aside from Devecigil being out for the season, she was the c- team cheerleader. She came to all the games to support, whether she was taking team stats or helping them at practice.

“Deniz helped us with drills, showed up to our games and gave us tips during the timeouts,” said freshman c- team player Grace Schnarre.

Devecigil has made progress over the season and even though it is not where she completely wants her shoulder to be, she is still proud of how far she’s come.

“Right now I’m just easing back into volleyball and working over the summer,” said Devecigil.