Another fourth

The Calumet Region Volleyball Invitational finished up tonight with Faith Christian School of Lafayette just nipping Heritage Christian High School of Dyer, Indiana, 25-14, 22-25, 16-14 in a very exciting and well-played final. Faith had not dropped even a game until the final, while Heritage reached the final after finishing second in its pool.

Now, to our Patriots. We already knew last night that we would finish first in our pool, but as I mentioned in the last post, the girls did not play their best on Friday and struggled to beat teams that they probably should have handled easily. So we weren't sure what was going to happen today. We were, however, quite familiar with our first opponent - Kankakee Trinity Academy, the fourth seed in the yellow pool and victor against Grace Baptist in their first game (Cal/Cal earned a bye in the first round). This was our fourth match against them this year. We had beat them the first three times, but it seemed that Trinity was tougher each time. That trend ended today. Calumet/Calvary jumped out to a 16-0 lead behind strong serving by Faith. The final of the first game was 21-5. The second was a little more competitive, but Cal/Cal still won, 21-12. On to the quarterfinal round, where Ridgewood awaited us. Ridgewood had beaten Calvary Academy and Quentin Road to get there. This round was where Cal/Cal fell last year. Again, a different story. The Patriots stormed to a 21-7 opening game victory, then hung on in the second game for a 21-17 win. This earned the Patriots a spot in the semifinals. Heritage Christian, who gave the Patriots its first loss was the opponent. Heritage won the first game rather easily, 21-14. Then things got interesting. Heritage was leading Cal/Cal 19-16 when the scorer took points off of both teams. The ref stopped the game, and after consulting the official scorebook, ordered the scoreboard to read 20-15. The Patriots ran off the next three points, but lost the next, resulting in a 21-18 game and match loss. Cal/Cal now had to play the third place game. Christian Liberty Academy was the opponent there, as they had lost in the other semifinal to Faith Christian. Our girls seemed tired and a little distracted and lost two games straight, 25-17, 25-15.

Congrats to Jessi Clark, all-tourney second team and Faith Rohn, all-tournament first team.