Girls volleyball: State title capped comeback story for Branson’s Snipes
By Shun Graves
IJ correspondent
Outside hitter Sadie Snipes tallied match-winning kills and thunderous spikes as the Branson School girls volleyball team powered its way to a state championship in November. That victory capped an incredible comeback story for Snipes, whose playing career was in doubt following a devastating leg injury last January.
The Bulls won all four postseason titles available to them last season. Snipes was a crucial piece to that success despite still sporting a scar on her right leg from the injury that kept her off the court for nearly half a year.
On Jan. 8, 2022, Snipes had just started a morning drill at Absolute Volleyball Club in San Rafael. During the serve-and-pass exercise, she turned to pass a high, wayward ball. Something went wrong. She didn’t remember falling down, but she knew she couldn’t stand up.
“Her knee twisted, so that when she ended up on the floor, it was not in the right spot,” said teammate Dylan Whisenant, who plays with Snipes at both Absolute and Branson.
The practice stopped. Snipes’ coach called her parents, who had just stopped by the nearby Home Depot for some remodeling materials. As they rushed back to Absolute, the coaches and players there had paused in their tracks, stunned by what they had witnessed.
They called an ambulance. The paramedics who soon arrived tried to pull down her kneepad, and that’s when the pain really began. They cut it off and loaded her into the vehicle.
When Snipes got to MarinHealth Medical Center, she had to wait nine hours for a bed. She transferred to UCSF Medical Center but had to wait until the next morning for surgery. Another operation followed at a UCSF children’s hospital.
“Playing volleyball wasn’t even on my mind,” Snipes said. “I didn’t even know if I could stand up.”
Snipes had suffered a complete fracture of the tibia and fibula bones in her right leg. When she returned home after a few more days in the hospital, Snipes couldn’t stand up. About a week after the injury, she got up on crutches to head toward the shower. She passed out.
“After that, I went back to the couch, lay down, and that was the first time I had cried since it happened,” Snipes said. “I didn’t even cry when it happened, but I just cried then out of frustration. If I couldn’t even get up and walk to the shower, how was I going to do anything?”
Yet if playing volleyball seemed distant, its people never seemed closer. Snipes’ Branson teammates brought her dozens of balloons and dinner for weeks. And recovery finally came into focus. During the months of physical therapy that followed, the sport took a back seat.
“Sports did not come into it at all,” said Mara Snipes, her mother. “It was really like, ‘Is she going to be able to walk? Is her leg going to be OK?’”
On March 1, doctors cleared Sadie Snipes to walk with one crutch; a few weeks later, she could walk with none. After another surgery in May, she finally returned to club practice on June 14, her birthday.
She couldn’t play that much, but she had some time on the court at the national championship in Indianapolis. Right after that, she flew to Southern California for a beach volleyball tournament.
“Jumping right in helped me,” Sadie Snipes said. “There was no time for me to ease into it or be worried that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have a choice.”
Sadie Snipes plays beach for Golden Gate Volleyball, as does older sister and Archie Williams hitter Elsa Snipes. With tournaments and practices, she played “pretty much every single day” throughout July and early August, she said. The sand surface, rather than a hard floor, helped her build strength while she recovered.
“Getting all those touches, building her strength back was a great way to do it,” her father, Richard Snipes, said. “That definitely set her up for success in the fall. And maybe that’s why, by the time fall came around, I was not even thinking about the injury any more.”
When Branson’s season began in August, coach Michelle Brazil saw how Sadie Snipes had recovered, and that her performance could reach new heights.
“Once she got on the court, I was like, ‘She’s good. We’re fine,’” Brazil said.
After the Bulls’ Division I state-title victory in November, her club beach team won a December tournament in Southern California. Now, just over a year after the injury that effectively ended her previous season, Sadie Snipes has charged ahead with Absolute.
“She brings a sense of calm to the court,” Whisenant said. “She executes game plans like no other person. She isn’t afraid to miss out on the biggest swing to score a point.”