Pepperdine volleyball perseveres through tragic November

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Sarah OttemanHannah Frohling panicked when she woke up on Nov. 8 to a text message from one of her volleyball teammates.

"Is everybody alive?"

Overnight, a mass shooting at a country line dancing bar near the Pepperdine campus left 13 dead, including the gunman. She learned later in the day that a freshman at the school was among those killed.

Volleyball practice that Thursday afternoon became a respite from the emotions that had deflated the typically festive campus, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, California. But something else loomed in the air, too.

Smoke.

Flames from the Woolsey Fire that ignited that same day encroached the perimeter of the university. The Santa Ana…