CAMAS — Stefani Sorensen knows why she competed in a volleyball match the night after her mother died two years ago.
“I didn’t want to be home thinking about it all day,” Sorensen said. “I knew she wouldn’t have wanted me to stay home and be depressed about it. I just feel she would have wanted me to play.”
She just has no idea how she performed that night, no real memory of the match itself.
Her coach knows.
“She played amazingly,” Camas coach Julie Nidick said. “It was one of those situations where volleyball was her release. It was her way of not having to deal with life at that time. I’m pretty sure she led the team in kills. She led the team in serve receives. She was amazing.”
It has been a little more than two years since Sorensen’s mom, Tamra, passed away unexpectedly. Since then, Sorensen has dedicated her volleyball and her academic performance to her mom — and she is excelling in both endeavors.
A year ago, she was voted the player of the year in the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League, leading her team to a district championship and a seventh-place trophy at state.
This season, Sorensen is hoping to help the Papermakers to a league title — they play second-place Prairie on Thursday — and an even better finish at state.
And her mom, in her mind, will be with her, celebrating every achievement.
“I think about her every game,” Sorensen said. “When we’re quiet before a match, when it’s time to focus, I think. ‘What can I do in this game to make her proud?’ It’s not just in volleyball.”
Sorensen carries a 3.95 grade-point average.
“I’ve always tried hard in school. I didn’t want to give up just because this happened,” Sorensen said. “She was so proud of me.”
Stefani also draws inspiration from her father, Steve, and her family. Stefani has two older siblings and two younger siblings. All have been instrumental in helping each other through the crisis.
“I have a really strong foundation,” Stefani said. “My dad is working hard to make sure all of us are taken care of.”
Steve is proud of how Stefani — how all of his children, in fact — have persevered.
“It’s one of those things you wake up every morning, you lean forward and put one foot in front of the other, and you move ahead,” Steve Sorensen said. “It was horrible. It was tragic. On the whole, the kids have done pretty well.”
While Tamra’s death was unexpected, the family had been dealing with her cancer for about three years. Tamra was treated and all reports were encouraging when the cancer returned about a year later. The next wave of treatment, Stefani recalls, was more intensive. That was Stefani’s freshman year.
By the time she was a sophomore, her mom was on the road to recovery again.
However, her treatment weakened her immune system. A bruise led to a staph infection.
“We were at practice,” Stefani recalled. “My uncle came in. I knew, immediately, something was wrong.”
Tamra Sorensen died from that infection.
The next day, Sorensen made the decision to honor her mother by playing for the Papermakers.
Her father and all of her siblings were there to support her, to support each other.
“Honestly, I was kind of in a haze the whole time,” Stefani said. “I got (The Columbian’s) athlete of the week that week. I thought that was really awesome. It was kind of comforting to me, like she was watching over me.”
Later that season, Sorensen shined at the district tournament, helping Camas defeat league champion Prairie. Last year, when she was voted the league’s top player, the Papermakers did it again; they beat league champion Prairie in the district tournament.
This year, the Papermakers are hoping for a league and district sweep.
And they have bigger goals in November.
“I want us to do better that we did last year at state,” Sorensen said. “I want us to fight and prove where our spot is.”
The vocal leadership is new this year, Nidick said. Always appreciative of Sorensen’s physical talents — she has been a varsity starter since her freshman season — the coach said she has seen a change in the way Sorensen interacts with her teammates.
“The other players have always been able to look up to her with how she plays. This year, she’s also more vocal, positive, always encouraging her teammates,” Nidick said.
Nidick said Sorensen’s teammates also respect her because she has never been about the statistics. Sorensen, an outside hitter, is the team’s leader in kills, but the numbers game has never been a motivating factor for her.
“I’ve known her since the sixth grade. She’s never been the type of athlete who wants personal glory,” Nidick said. “Everything she does is for her team.”
Sorensen’s future plans have to do with helping others, as well. She wants to get into nursing, again in honor of her mother. Tamra was a stay-at-home mom.
“She took care of us,” Stefani said. “She was our life, and we were her life.”
As a nurse, Stefani said, she can take care of people, too.
While her talent suggests she could play for a big university, she is considering smaller campuses, such as Eastern Oregon University.
She has not made up her mind just yet but she has an idea of what she is looking for in college.
“I don’t want to sit on the bench at a Division-I level school. I want to play,” she said. “I want to have fun in college. I think I would be able to focus more at a smaller school.”
Focus has not been a problem for Sorensen at Camas. A strong student and an exceptional volleyball player, she keeps pushing herself to do more.
It comes from her mother.
“There’s always that ounce of me that wants to play better for her,” Sorensen said. “I’m always driven by her to play well.”
