Successful start of a new season

The varsity team finally played other high school teams, as they kicked off the 2008 season with the Grace Baptist Academy Quad. The four teams invited to the quad were Calumet/Calvary, Kankakee Trinity Academy, Covenant Christian High, and the host school.

Calumet kicked off the day's activities by taking on Covenant at 9:00 AM. The starters were Jessie Clark, Kara Boss, Rachel Eizenga, Faith Rohn, Jessi Stas and Elizabeth Short. Anna Choate started as libero for Elizabeth. Covenant jumped out to an early 6-1 lead. Calumet looked like they hadn't quite woke up yet. Rachel's serves got them back into it and they took an 8-6 lead. But then serving errors, weak defense and strong play by Covenant gave Covenant the lead which they didn't give up, resulting in the final of 25-16. The second game occurred after Calumet's alarm clock went off, apparently. They jumped out to a 10-4 lead. After some point exchanges, the score was 13-6. Then Calumet really cranked it up and won, 25-9. There were no (maybe one) missed serves and much better defense and hustle. In the third game, Calumet took the early lead at 7-2. They struggled a bit from that point but finished off Covenant, 15-13.

The second game of the day for Calumet was against Kankakee Trinity. Calumet has handled Trinity pretty easily in the past, but soon the Patriots found that Trinity had improved. Calumet, however, got an early lead and gradually increased it to 19-11. Trinity played well from this point, but Calumet got the victory, 25-18, with the final point on a spike by Elizabeth. Calumet had an easier time in the second game, mainly because they played their best. The final score was 25-13, which doesn't seem very exciting, but the final three points were: 1)Kara blocked a spike, which Trinity returned barely over the net to Calumet on the first hit, and Kara buried it; 2)Faith had a big hit, and 3)Faith had a HUGE hit.

After a delicious lunch (thanks, moms) Calumet faced the host team for their final match of the day. Grace is in a rebuilding year, with many young players on their roster. Calumet continued with their momentum built in the earlier matches, and defeated Grace, 25-13 and 25-15.

Last year, Calumet played in a quad in Lafayette early in the season. The results were the opposite of this one. Faith-Lafayette, Fulton County, and a Catholic school whose name escapes me all defeated Calumet. (The girls did turn it around by the end of the year.) The level of competition was much higher in last year's quad, but it was great that the girls could get an opposite result this year, and hopefully this will give the girls some confidence for the rest of the year.