Sometimes a football player will run out of bounds with so much momentum that they smash into a table on the sidelines, possibly overturning many cups of Gatorade. Sometimes a basketball player will leap over the scorer's table after lunging for a loose ball headed for the stands. This is all boring horseshit, for I have now seen this volleyball highlight where Houston Cougars libero Kate Georgiades makes a Willie Mays-esque diving defensive play well beyond the backline, wipes out a folding table by going over and through it, keeps the ball in play, and returns to the action in time for another clutch play on the same point.
Just five seconds lapse between the moment that Georgiades goes airborne and the moment that she reappears back in the thick of the action. It is clear from her rag-dolling movements after her next flailing pass that she is by this time completely exhausted, but her two efforts keep the point alive until eventually Houston's front line finishes the deal. I have watched this highlight easily 30 times today and I still gasp every time she goes over the table and then cackle wildly as she flops to the floor on the subsequent pass. It's just an unbelievable athletic sequence.
How did Georgiades, who has twice won the American Athletic Conference's Libero of the Year, know to time her dive to go over the table, rather than facefirst into it, while tracking a ball in flight? She didn't.
"I was just looking up, I didn’t even see a table there," she told The Daily Cougar after the match, which her Cougars won 3–2 to secure their first NCAA Tournament victory since 1994. Houston took a lesson from Georgiades's persistence into Saturday's second-round match against Auburn, a tight five-set affair which the Cougars won after taking over in the closing stages. Georgiades was key in this one, too, with a match-high 27 digs, or instances when she thwarted the opponent's attacking move. Houston advanced to the Sweet 16 and will play Stanford on Thursday. At this point you have to feel they are the team of destiny.
