Olivia Brodt's legacy lives on through Barnstable volleyball 'Dig Yellow' Night

HYANNIS — Olivia Brodt continues to impact Barnstable’s girls volleyball team. Brodt was 20 years old when she died in April 2017 from complications of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of the skeletal muscles that eventually led to tumors forming in the spinal fluid in her brain.

The Red Raiders, as they were called at the time, held their first “Dig Yellow” Night in 2016 to support Brodt and raise money for cancer awareness. The game has become an annual event for the Red Hawks, played in a gymnasium in which Brodt’s No. 3 jersey has been retired and hangs on the wall.

Barnstable held its latest Dig Yellow Night on Thursday, when Lindsay Jones fired a game-high 16 kills to lead the Red Hawks to a 25-15, 25-10, 25-21 win over the Falmouth Clippers.

"Every practice we step in, we look at the sign (for Olivia),” Jones said. “It’s so meaningful to us, playing for (Assistant) Coach (Craig) Brodt, and playing for Olivia. It’s meaningful to everyone. It’s not playing for one singular player. We’re playing as a team, bringing it all together and playing our hearts out.”

The money from concessions and raffle ticket sales from Thursday’s game will go towards Wellness Kids, a service within the Hyannis-based Cape Wellness Collaborative that supports families that are dealing with pediatric cancer. The match raised $2,772 for Wellness Kids, according to Barnstable teacher and volleyball parent Jennifer Mullin, and over six years has raised more than $6,000 for various causes and organizations.

"Olivia was definitely a huge part of this program,” Barnstable coach Tom Turco said. “She’s with us every day, and it’s important to us that we keep that legacy alive.”

Brodt won two state championships and earned two all-star and all-state honors during her time as Barnstable’s starting setter. She graduated in 2015 with more than 1,000 career assists, and went on to play for Division III Babson College in Wellesley.

For Turco, Brodt’s attitude and approach mattered far more than her accolades.

"She was always positive, always built her teammates up,” Turco said. “She was that solid force, and positive force, and in a setter that’s a really good trait.”

Brodt spent her senior season playing alongside freshman sister Caroline, who as a fellow setter would sometimes replace Olivia on the court. Caroline went on to mimic many of her sister’s achievements, including winning two state titles, joining the team’s “1,000 assists” club, making two all-state teams and playing DIII college volleyball at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.

Caroline described those games as “an opportunity to remember her and others who have died too young,” and “a perfect occasion to celebrate life and the sport she loved so dearly.”

“It’s hard to find words to describe how I feel after moving on from Barnstable High School,” Caroline said in a text message. “Coach Turco is the reason Dig Yellow has turned into a tradition for BHSVB. My family and I are grateful for the support and awareness this event brings to childhood cancer and the community. It is a reminder that each day is a gift.”

Craig Brodt, Olivia and Caroline’s father, joined his daughters’ team as an assistant coach in 2017, and has been here for the last five Dig Yellow Nights. Barnstable’s players always wear yellow uniforms for the match, yellow ribbons being associated with bone cancer such as rhabdomyosarcoma (the ribbon for pediatric cancer is gold), and on Thursday yellow streamers and balloons decorated the bleachers and walls of the BHS gymnasium.

“Tom, he made a promise to me that he would never let Olivia be forgotten,” Craig Brodt said. “It was always one of their biggest activities. They started (volleyball) so young, as they did with dance, but I think they both supported each other in their athleticism and their discipline.”

Each set followed a similar pattern Thursday, as Falmouth (2-3) could only hang in for so long before Barnstable went ahead for good. The Red Hawks (5-2) only needed 11-12 points to seize command of the first two sets, but the Clippers battled deep into the third.

Two aces by Camille Leite (3 aces, 2 kills) and a pair of hitting errors gave Falmouth a 19-16 lead in the third set. Jones and Cayleigh Fleming tied the match 20-20 with back-to-back kills, Fleming surprising the Falmouth defense when she dove for a ball heading out of bounds and just managed to punch it back over the net.

Jones eventually wrapped up the match with a kill. Neely Alger tallied eight kills, Allison Nystrom had seven, Laura Cogswell had 31 assists and six aces, Fleming and Logan Hurwitz each recorded nine digs on defense, and Dierdre Mullin added five digs.

Jones attacked primarily out of the middle, but also had success sliding over to the right side of the net before smashing Cogswell’s sets to the court.

"I started (attacking on the right) my JV season with Laura, and then she got pulled up,” said Jones. “We started doing it again whenever we were all together, and it’s perfect. She has the perfect set.”

Sydney Sevigny led Falmouth with six kills and a block, followed by Meghan Robbins with three kills and an ace. Falmouth is one of Barnstable’s oldest rivals, but that didn’t stop the Clippers from making a combined donation to Wellness Kids prior to the game.

“My captains got together, and the four of them asked all the kids (on the team),” said Falmouth coach Ernie Holcomb. "The kids really look forward to playing Barnstable, and then to have it be a special night like this, that was good for both sides.”

Contact Matt Goisman at mgoisman@capecodonline.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Girls volleyball: Barnstable's "Dig Yellow" Night honors Olivia Brodt