A trip to the beach can be good for the soul. For Amanda Matsui, it was good for her knee.
The Port Coquitlam volleyball player was at the tail end of a year-long rehabilitation from knee surgery that had already cost her a chance to play at Vancouver Island University and sapped her confidence she’d ever be a top competitive player again, when her coach at the University of the Fraser Valley, Mike Gilray, took Matsui and seven other players from his program to play in the sand at Redondo Beach, Calif.
Literally.
Matsui said 12 days of workouts and scrimmages on the beach last summer, where volleyball courts stretched along the ocean for as far as she could see, tested her reconstructed joint and restored her faith that it could withstand the rigours of leaping at the net for spikes, diving across the floor for digs, jumping for blocks.
“That’s where I felt confident again,” Matsui said. “Diving in the sand — if I can do that there, then I can do it in the gym.”
Gilray, who’s also coached provincial beach volleyball teams for the Canada Games, said it was important to give the players the physical and mental challenge of learning a new game.
“It practices all the skills,” Gilray said. “It’s the challenge of learning through failing.”
Since Matsui returned to the floor, there hasn’t been much failing.
In what is essentially her rookie season after she was redshirted for her freshman year as she rehabbed her knee, Matsui is one of only three players in the PACWEST conference to rank in the top 10 in total offence, aces, kills and digs.
Recently Matsui’s 16 kills and 20 digs led the seventh-ranked Cascades to a four-set victory over third-ranked VIU and helped earn her recognition as the PACWEST female volleyball player of the week. And her spiking ability from the left side will be key when UFV host the PACWEST championships for the first time Feb. 22 to 24.
Not bad considering Matsui almost quit the sport entirely.
A three-time athlete of the year at Riverside secondary, and two-time all-star at AAAA provincials when she led the Rapids to a silver medal in 2014 and a bronze the following year, 6’1” Matsui was being actively recruited by several post-secondary programs when she blew out her knee playing her other beloved sport, basketball.
At first, she said, the injury didn’t feel serious, just “uncomfortable.” It was initially diagnosed as a strain, but when the swelling subsided her doctor delivered the bad news: a torn ACL that would require surgery and then rehab for an additional nine to 12 months.
Matsui was devastated. A deal to play volleyball and study at VIU fell through.
“It was hard,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to play again.”
Matsui pondered registering at Douglas College, just to study.
But some heartfelt conversations with her high school and club coaches, including a pivotal one with Bryan Gee, convinced Matsui to put in the hard work to get back on the volleyball court.
“He told me you’ve come this far, you’ve done so good, there’s no point in giving up now,” she said.
So she didn’t, and a meeting with Gilray brought her to UFV, where she’s studying social work.
Gilray said he never had a doubt, even though bringing Matsui to his team meant sacrificing a roster spot for the season.
“It was an easy recruiting situation for me,” he said. “Knowing what she was going through, how she was dealing with it and how she wanted to get back,”
Sitting out her freshman season wasn’t easy, Matsui said. Still, she participated in all the team activities, attended practices, compiled stats during games. She also put in time at the gym, stretching her injured knee, bending it, balancing on it, squatting, lifting weights, getting more physically fit.
“That’s what that year off really offers them, to allow them to come back stronger,” Gilray said.
Even another knee injury scare midway through this season hasn’t deterred Matsui, who wears a brace around her reconstructed joint. After all, she’d already been to the bottom.
“It was something I can use to make myself better,” Matsui said of her battle back to the top.
