Traditional kickoff of the season

The second (and official kick off) of the season was tonight at Lake Hills with the junior high and JV intrasquad games and the alumni game for the varsity.

The junior high game and the JV games were mixed squads of the A and B teams. For the junior high game, Kelsey coached one of the teams and Tina coached the other. In the interest of time, the match was limited to two games, with each team winning one. Tina's team won the first, 27-25 with Kelsey's team winning the second, 25-15. Asked about how the players looked, Kelsey said, "Well, they played better than they practiced."

The JV game as mentioned above, was between two teams taken from both the A and B teams. In this game, Coach Carr coached one of the teams and Jene Becerra coached the other. Jene has been helping out at practice and accompanied the teams to Maranatha for the camp as well. The play was pretty good for the first game of the year. As with the junior high, the teams split two games, with Jene's team winning the first, 25-16 and Coach Carr's team winning the second, 25-23.

The last game of the night was a best-of-five match between alumni players and the varsity. The varsity was without Tina Schnoor and Taylor Lindbloom, who are out with a broken arm and broken patella, respectively. Also, since Jessie Clark had just returned from vacation and hadn't practiced, she did not play. Rachel and Emily Eizenga were brought up from JV for this game. The alumni team consisted of Kelsey Boss '08, Stephanie Carlson '08, Karissa Porter '07, Amanda Anderson '06, Ashley Anderson '04, Alli Carr '04, Rachel Carr Schmucker '00, and Ruthie Olsen Carmien '99. Penni Harris Jeralds '96 was the referee. The team played well considering the injuries and new players, but were beaten in four games by the alumni, 21-25, 27-25, 25-23 and 25-15.

The 2008 season is shaping up to be a challenging one, with the top two hitters graduated and the two important returning players out with injuries. The roster for opening night on Friday will be as follows:

Kara Boss, Jr, #17, 5'6", OH
Amy Broadbent, Sr, #16, 5'10", MH
Anna Choate, Jr, #12, 5'6", DS/L
Jessie Clark, Jr, #9, 5'9", S/OH
Faith Rohn, Fr, #21, 5'7", S/OH
Elizabeth Short, Sr, #15, 5'6", MH
Jessi Stas, Jr, #7, 5'9", OH

Calumet/Calvary lost Kelsey Boss, Stephanie Carlson, Jene Becerra and Kait Wirkowski to graduation. The team will miss the hitting and leadership of Kelsey and Stephanie and the defense of Jene and Stephanie; they will be difficult to replace. The '08 team has three players who moved up from JV: Kara, Elizabeth and Anna; and the others are returning players.

This is the roster to begin the year, but is subject to change if JV players are brought up or either of the two injured girls return before season's end.

To recap last year:

I cannot find my records from last year, so I don't recall the JV record. I do remember that it was below .500. That really didn't reflect the talent on the team, as it was split into two roughly equal squads.

The varsity finished last year at 26-13-4. I believe their record over the last 21 games was 17-4. Highlights included:
- Making the quarterfinals in the Calumet tournament
- Making the quarterfinals in the Quentin Road tournament
- Taking second place in the state tournament to Fulton County
- Taking second place in the NACA national tournament in Division II (beating Ballard on the way - woohoo!)

The girls have a lot to live up to. They're off to a good start with their play at Maranatha. I trust that Coach Carr and Coach Casey will do their usual remarkable job.