“The Pursuit of Happiness” makes Ashley Dostie sad.
To clarify: The “movie” of that namesake makes Ashley Dostie sad. In fact, the movie, she said – in addition to its somber effect on her – also: “helped me realize that anything can come from hard work and dedication.”
Proof of that comes on the volleyball court.
Dostie, “who leads the defense (and wears the No. 16),” said Head Coach Marlene Rogers, has helped Veterans compile a 17-10 record overall, 3-0 in the Area. Most recently she had 10 digs in the team’s 3-0 over Perry and helped lead the squad to a 3-0 win over First Presbyterian Day.
As such, the senior libero has earned honors as the Academy Sports+Outdoors Athlete of the Week (volleyball).
Dostie is the daughter of Riza and Mike Dostie. What she finds most satisfying about her sport, she said, is when you get a “huge dig, especially if you win the point off of it.”
Opposite of that perhaps are the challenges. One, she said, is the fact it’s sometimes hard to “read” which direction the ball is going to be hit, and second is the nervousness that comes during the serve receive. “Especially,” she said, “on the last point because you know you have to get the point.”
In the pursuit of happiness – wins, Area and state championships and the like, etc – there will be the obvious ups and downs. The one that sticks out in her mind, as far as the first, was last year’s team. It was, simply put: “The best team I’ve played on … because we worked really hard and made it to the Elite Eight.”
Ah yes. The Elite Eight. That turns out to be the worst of those “downs”. “We took them to five games and on the last point, the ball slipped through my hands on a serve receive pass.”
Her father, she said, likes her sport the most because one, she’s playing it, but two and three, because he also used to play and has coached more than one of the travel ball teams she’s been on.
Dostie, according to MaxPreps, has currently played 65 sets. She has 70 aces, 239 digs and nine kills.
Academically, she has received the Honors Academic Award for the past three years and graduated from the Youth Leadership Program her junior year.
She is also a young lady whose favorite food is chicken alfredo and favorite TV show is Vampire Diaries. Add: believer in God to that, and something she said only He can do is, “watch over all of us and completely forgive us for all of our sins.”
Her heart in the right place then, it should come as no surprise that if she had $50,000 to give away, she would split it evenly between animal shelters, nursing homes, homeless shelters and hospitals.
“This is because I absolutely adore animals. I think elderly people are so sweet, seeing homeless people makes me sad and I want to help, and hospitals can use the money for research or to help with expenses or creating new medicines.”
Perhaps a new clarification is in order. It’s entirely conceivable her true road, her one desire, in the pursuit of happiness, is not to achieve it for herself – although to live like this, she most certainly will – but to see it in others. Nothing sad about that!
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