It’s 1999, and Puyallup’s team is competing with Auburn Riverside for not only the districts title but a bid to State.  

The sounds of fans cheering, coaches shouting instructions, and players encouraging each other to fill the court. Tensions are high as the pressure fills every crack in the team’s confidence. They can’t slip up.  

The entire gym exhales as the score board flips from 14 to 15. Puyallup has won, awarding them the districts title and a sure bid to state. Pom poms are frantically waving, players are embracing each other and the referees are settling the final scores.  

The team’s coach, Tony Batinovich, marveled at how the team had stayed together through challenges, wins, and losses.  

“Auburn, at that time, had a good program too, and they were kind of our arch nemesis. In the finals, it was two to one. It was a good match, it really was,” Batinovich said.  

In the very same district’s tournament, the team had faced a moment that truly bonded them forever.  

“There was an unfortunate situation that happened to us at that tournament. It was right around Homecoming time here at Puyallup, and unfortunately, one of our girl’s dates committed suicide,” Batinovich said.  

At the time, none of the girls knew. It was up to Coach Batinovich and the girl’s parents to break the news.  

“After we were done playing that day, obviously we had to let them know. They took the two girls, they were twins, in one of the rooms we were staying in. Her mom and dad and her closest friend were in there, and they were going to go break the news over there,” Batinovich said. “I had the girls in the other room, and I had to break the news to them.” 

The girls didn’t leave for Puyallup until the next day, so they were forced to spend the night with that hanging over them.  

“It was really just beyond emotional and sad. But I think it kind of brought the kids kind of little bit closer together too, because they shared in the pain of that one girl. Strange bonding moment, but I think it did bond us for life,” Batinovich said.  

And so the joy of taking the districts title meant more than just another win to add to their eventual 36-2 record.  

“Those girls, the class of ’99 grads, all played together when they were younger. They all grew up together, playing through a group that was called Rage. They were just a good group of people, a hard-working group, very talented and really unified,” Batinovich said. “There was a pair of sisters, four of the kids lived in the same cul-de-sac neighborhood. They really liked playing with each other.”  

But despite knowing how to have fun, the team took every practice seriously and pushed each other to be better. 

“They were a fun group to be around, but practice was meant for competitive stuff, and they were competitive with each other. I think they knew how to push each other’s buttons, probably sometimes better than I did. They got better at motivating each other to keep the whole thing going. They placed fourth the year before, as juniors, so they knew that they had it in him,” Batinovich said.  

All sports experience some sort of change as time goes on, and volleyball is no different.  

“When we played here, it was a slightly different set of rules. No hands on serve receive, none of that kind of stuff. It wasn’t rally score, it was side out scoring,” Batinovich said.

Though not everyone from the team went on to play in college, those that did met high levels of success.

“There were four girls that went and played in college. One at Western, one at Seattle, one at PLU and our setter went to Spokane Falls Community College, which was one of the best community colleges in the state at that time, and then finished up at a place called Warner Pacific, which was a private Christian school,” Batinovich said.

The team even called themselves “the Definite Dozen,” arising from the themed shirts they used every year.  

“I don’t know what it is, but I love quotes, and this Pat Summit, who was, at that time, and for a long time, the head women’s basketball coach at University of Tennessee, she had this book out called the definite dozen,” Batinovich said. “Pat Summit’s thing about how to improve, work smarter, not harder. That’s why we called ourselves a definite dozen.”