On Monday, Oct. 20, Oakton Volleyball faced off against Robinson Secondary School at its annual “Dig Pink” game. Dig Pink is an event that happens all around the country, supported by the Side-Out Foundation that raises money to find a cure for stage IV, or metastatic, breast cancer. This year, the Oakton Volleyball players raised over $11,000 — more than any other year that DIg Pink has happened at Oakton. Dig Pink is always especially great at Oakton because the freshman volleyball coach, Rick Dunetz is the founder and executive director of the Side-Out Foundation.
The Side-Out Foundation was founded in 2004 while Dunetz was the head varsity coach for West Springfield High School. It was his first season as a head coach, which comes with a lot of responsibility. At the same time, his mother was rediagnosed with breast cancer. It was a very tough time for Dunetz because his mother was diagnosed with stage IV cancer, which has no cure. Dunetz shared his mother’s story and struggles with his team as motivation to be strong and to out their best effort into everything they do. “It’s wonderful to see this program and event continue to grow and gain more support and attention,” said Dunetz.
However, this year’s Dig Pink started at risk of not even happening. As the freshman teams from both schools went to shake hands, the school was ordered to evacuate. An unknown airborne irritant had caused the evacuation, and the fire department arrived at the school to evaluate the situation. Players and spectators waited outside for an hour and 15 minutes before being let back into the gym, which caused the freshman game to be cancelled, and JV warm-ups to be condensed. The time spent outside and shortened warm-ups didn’t appear to have an effect on the JV team’s play, as they beat Robinson in the best of three sets (2-1). Between the JV and Varsity games, the excitement of Dig Pink only increased as the volleyball program performed a flash mob.
In addition to all of the special activities associated with Dig Pink, there was another milestone for the Cougars. Junior outside hitter Alice Yang scored her 700th kill, the most career kills in school history (a kill is a hit that directly leads to a point for the team).All the excitement of the night propelled the varsity team to a quick victory over the Robinson Rams, winning the best of five sets 3-0
