Lake Central senior Alyssa McClelland hasn’t forgotten how the 2020 season ended.

“We were all prepared and were talking about how excited we were to play our best,” she said. “And then to get the announcement that pretty much of all of us had to quarantine was a huge punch in the gut.”

McClelland, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter, was one of several Lake Central players who were unavailable for the sectional opener against Merrillville due to COVID-19 protocols. With a depleted lineup, the Indians lost 3-1 to a team they had defeated twice during the regular season.

As Lake Central returns for the 2021 season, McClelland and her teammates are searching for a different ending while approaching the sport with a changed perspective.

The memories from that day are still fresh in McClelland’s mind, even one year later.

“It was during the first period of school,” she said. “I was watching a movie in class, and 20 minutes after the bell rang, there was an announcement for all of the volleyball players to go to the auditorium.”

By that afternoon, the team learned that all but two of the varsity players would have to go into a two-week quarantine, leaving the roster decimated for the match against Merrillville that evening.

For McClelland, the news meant that a regular-season match a week earlier against LaPorte was the final time she shared the court with teammates who would graduate.

“We weren’t aware that our last one with some of our closest friends was during that LaPorte match,” she said. “We were expecting a couple more games with them, but it didn’t happen. And then we all had to quarantine, so we couldn’t really hang out, either.”

But it is the nature of sports that one athlete’s misfortune can be another’s opportunity. Libero Brooke Tinberg, who played on the junior varsity team as a freshman last season, made her first varsity start in that sectional match against Merrillville.

“I was nervous,” Tinberg said. “It was like, ‘Wow, this is a sectional match.’ It was kind of nerve-wracking. But the two upperclassmen helped us all around the court.”

Although the result wasn’t what Lake Central wanted, Tinberg said she looks at it as a positive experience overall.

“It’s made me more excited and more confident for this season,” she said.

Lake Central also has a new coach this season. Naveed Nizam, who had prior stints at Andrean and Munster, takes over.

“We have a lot of depth this year,” he said. “The 13 kids we have on this team are very athletic. It’s not like there’s just one player with skill and everyone else is there to take up space on the court.”

Away from matches, Nizam said Lake Central is taking extra precautions to ensure that what happened last season doesn’t happen again.

“I think they do appreciate the fact that they’re going to have a full season this year,” he said.

McClelland said she’s more prepared after spending the past several months improving her conditioning with extra workouts focused on speed and weight training. But the coronavirus pandemic continues with a recent surge in COVID-19 cases across the country.

McClelland — who said she is vaccinated, an option that wasn’t available last fall — could offer only hope for an uninterrupted season.

“I really hope it doesn’t happen again,” she said. “But the experience we had last year taught me to appreciate every match because you never know when it’s going to be the last one. Last year, we thought we were going to have a few more matches with our seniors, but that ended up being our last one. So you have to take advantage of every match.”

Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.