The longest

season

By BOB VARMETTE

Journal Sports Writer

MORGAN -- The wreck was over in seconds. The effects are still felt, and will continue to be felt for a very long time.

Jacquie Distad nearly died Aug. 17 in the two-vehicle wreck five miles south of Bird Island. She was sitting in the back seat on the right side of the car -- the same side that was broadsided.

Her pelvis was shattered in five places. Both of her collarbones were fractured, and she suffered a broken rib and a broken right arm near the shoulder. Jacquie still remains in a coma at Gillette Children's Hospital in St. Paul.

Jacquie was just days away from starting her junior year at Cedar Mountain. She would have been the starting setter for the Cougars.

She would have been their leader.

Not only were there broken bones, but broken spirits.

"This was completely unexpected, to lose Jacquie, and then to continually lose matches," Kim Mathiowetz said. "After we lost our eight seniors from last year, we were thinking this was just going to be a fun season. We were going to go out there and just have fun."

Instead this season has turned into the longest season for the Cougars' senior outside hitter and her teammates. Cedar Mountain is 0-11. They expected to be a .500 team.

The record is meaningless. The losses mount, but each day, each practice, each moment holds a deeper sense of loss.

The Cougars are a team disconnected -- disconnected from winning, disconnected from their anger, disconnected from their sorrow. They are a team still stunned, still disbelieving, still hoping, still praying to wake up from the nightmare.

"It was a shock, that it was her, that this was her it had happened to," Krystal Kerkhoff said. It really hurt to hear about it, and to hear what can happen in the future to her. How could this have happened to her?"

The Cougars talk little about it. They can't help but to think about it, but the inflections in the voices and the sullen expressions hint at detachment.

"I wish they would talk about it more," first-year Cedar Mountain coach Deb Bode said. "I don't know what I can do to get them to do that because when I say something the heads go down or they turn away."

Jacquie is seldom far from their mind. Occasionally it gains voice, like after the team receives updates on Jacquie's condition from Deb Distad -- Jacquie's aunt and her former coach.

But the feelings for the most part remain inside, Bode said. Almost as if talking about those feelings would end any hope of waking up from the nightmare.

While the Cougars may not talk about it as a team, they think about Jacquie. Their thoughts wander.

Bode believes Cedar Mountain should be 6-5. There have been close games and close matches, close enough where the loss of focus for a second or two could mean the loss of a critical point.

"You know you have to get over it and think of other stuff," Kerkhoff said. "But she's still on our minds."

Heavily.

Jacquie's prognosis is uncertain. Nearly eight weeks after the wreck, she's still unconscious.

Jacquie has brain activity and, while she is still on a respirator that humidifies the air, she is breathing on her own. The broken bones, the cuts and the tear in her diaphragm are healing.

But the doctors don't know the extent of her brain injury. And they won't know until, unless, Jacquie regains consciousness.

There are positive signs. Jacquie does move; she does respond to certain stimuli.

The Cougars, the students at Cedar Mountain, and the residents of Morgan and Franklin, where Jacquie lived with her parents Jane and Jeff Distad, hope. They pray; they believe, but they still don't know.

But they know Jacquie.

"As I've watched her at the hospital struggle to survive, I often think about how her determination, the never-give-up attitude, the refusal to quit will bring her back to us," Deb Distad said.

But for now, the Cougars are without her, except for the memories. And they remember.

Jacquie's number -- 9 -- is still waiting for her. The team displays her jersey at every match.

Yellow ribbons are tied around trees and posts and on door handles at the schools in Morgan and Franklin. The once-bright yellow ribbons look faded in the waning light of October afternoons, but they vividly connect the team, the towns to Jacquie and Katie Fox -- also seriously injured in the wreck.

On Parents' Night Tuesday, an extra rose was ordered -- for Jacquie. It was presented to Deb Distad to give to the family.

While something as trivial as winning and losing has given way to larger concerns, there is still one more thing the Cougars would like to present to Jacquie -- a victory.

"At the beginning of the season, we dedicated the season to Jacquie," Mathiowetz said. "I think a win would help boost our confidence and help Jacquie. It would be great to go back to her and tell her, 'Hey, we won!'"

Jacquie's teammates are ironically without a person they would have leaned heavily upon to get through such a tragedy. Jacquie is miles away and unable to help them, to support them, to reassure them.

"She was always there to congratulate a player or to offer encouragement," said Michelle Phillips, Jacquie's junior varsity coach last season. "The greatest impact of Jacquie's loss is the emotional impact. ... Winning or losing a match has a new perspective compared to almost losing someone you care about."

Mathiowetz visited Jacquie one week ago. She described it as an incredibly difficult experience to see her former teammate -- the one that had bruised hips from the start of volleyball to the conclusion of the season from diving after ball after ball -- nearly motionless and needing to have her head supported.

Bode thinks the entire team needs to visit Jacquie, to help in the healing process, but she's not sure how they would respond.

"We had our sweatshirts made and the varsity team bought Jacquie's," Bode said. "We haven't delivered that to her yet. I thought we'd do it as a team.

"Some may not want to see her that way. There will be those who wouldn't handle it very well and will need a hug or to talk about it. But the main thing is that it will be done as a team."