Last Wednesday, Jake “Sunshine” Sanders lost his battle with Non-Hodgkin’s T-cell Lymphoma. The
Darby graduate had battled the disease for the last year and through his battle, had touched the lives of many in the valley and throughout the state. He returned home a week ago from Houston where he and his mother, Debi, had been.
The Darby volleyball team decided to honor Sanders during their volleyball game against Victor. The team wore yellow tee shirts, socks and ribbons in their hair. The majority of the crowd was wearing various shades of yellow. Victor’s football team even showed up wearing their gold uniforms for ‘Sunshine’. The gym was decorated with posters of suns and sayings such as ‘you’re our hero” on the walls. After a short speech by Teaanna Rouse, Casey Ehmann and Makenzie Clarke, the three seniors on the team, the match began.
The first game was close through out the first part. Victor’s Sophie Pearson served up a few tough balls but an adjustment by Darby’s defense stopped the rally and Darby went on to win the first game, 25-16. The Lady Tigers dominated in the second game and won, 25-11. In the third game, Casey Ehmann of Darby took over from the left side after the game was tied at 13. She knocked down four balls in a row to give the momentum back to the Lady Tigers. They went on to win, 25-15.
Darby def. Victor, 25-16, 25-11, 25-15
Darby – Kills 30 (Casey Ehmann 13), Blocks 4, Digs 7 (Ehmann 3), Aces 9 (Haliegh Golden 5).
Victor – Kills 11 (Haylea Wemple 3, Ashley Hopper 3), Blocks 2 (Wemple), Digs 44 (Rebecka Shaffer 10, Hopper 10), Assists 8 (Pearson 4), Aces 2 (Hopper).
On Friday, the Darby football team was supposed to play Charlo for Senior Night. However, the majority of the Charlo team was suspended last week for a team infraction. Instead of bringing the junior varsity team, Charlo opted to forfeit.
Since it was Senior Night and because the team had planned to honor Sanders by retiring his football jersey, the team decided to have an inter-squad scrimmage. The school retired Sander’s number, 61. After the game was over, the team, school and crowd gathered to release Chinese lanterns into the sky over Darby.