Marco Island Charter Middle School Wins Championship

Marco Island Middle School coach Jodi Pree did her homework and felt pretty confident in her top-seeded volleyball team going into the championship game Thursday night in the Eagles’ gym. One thing she didn’t count on was the raucous crowd that came to support the Everglades Gators.

"The only thing I didn't prepare them for was the noise,” Jodi Pree said. "So next year I'm actually going to implement that to get used to it, because I like to have them prepared for anything. I'm very prepared. And I take notes during the matches and make notes for what we need to work on each time. We've adjusted to things, like they have a wonderful player, Ava Lenz, she's their strongest hitter.”

Everglades City went toe-to-toe with the Eagles in the first game, and their fans made so much of a ruckus that people were getting loud environment notifications on their Apple Watches.

“Honestly,” Pree said, "I had never heard the gym that loud. It was absolutely great. I was trying to yell at certain times so I could tell them what to do, and I knew they couldn't hear me. Everglades City hosted it last year and their gym was insanely loud.”

When all the dust settled, it was the favored Eagles who came out on top, 25-19, 25-12, to win the Southwest Florida Athletic Conference championship and preserve their perfect conference record.

The Everglades City crowd kept the volume pumped up right to the end, despite a lopsided score in the second game.

"My head was pounding,” Pree said. “I was just kind of like trying to make hand signals. And mostly all I was trying to do was calm the girls down. I called two time-outs just so the girls could breathe. Because I didn't want it getting amped up too much. I called it right at match point because I needed them just to calm it down, because I think we'd been on match point for a couple points maybe, and I wanted them just to breathe. Calm down."