Little better

Well, we made our bed yesterday and today we slept in it. How's that for a totured metaphor? What I mean is that because we mailed it in yesterday morning, we paid for it today with an opening match in bracket play against the class of the tournament, Christian Community from Ohio. Yesterday they embarrassed us; today they just beat us.

We did play much better than yesterday, but Christian Community is probably the best team we played all year, including Faith of Lafayette. They play excellent defense, they hustle, they set well, they dink intelligently and they hit. Did I miss anything? Anyway, the result of the best of five match was three straight losses for us, 25-15, 25-16, 25-14.

If we had played better yesterday, especially against our second opponent, Girard Alliance, we would have seeded higher and perhaps made it to the second round or even the final, as Christian Community is better than anyone else here and we wouldn't have had to face them first. We would have faced a lesser opponent in the first round and then who knows what might have happened.

Moving on to our first round in the fifth place bracket (I prefer that to the "loser's bracket"), we faced a pesky Porterville Christian (PA) team. We played so-so in the first game, with good hustle and weak offense. No team had a greater lead than four, which was Porterville at 20-16. They also led at 21-18 and 23-22, but we eked out a 26-24 win. The second game did not start like the third. Cal/Cal took an early lead and stretched it to 18-8. At that point our mistakes started adding up and Portersville started playing better and pretty soon it was tied at 24. Finally the Patriots were able to get the requisite two point lead and won, 27-25.

The third game was more representative of what all three games should have been, as the Patriots started getting their act together and Portersville began to fall apart. Our girls jumped to a 24-8 lead, and after trying to get Amy a kill for a few points, they finished off their opponent, 25-12.

Tomorrow we take on Riverdale from Maryland for fifth place. From what we've seen of them, we should be able to do it.

Coach Carr is already making phone calls to get us back to NACA next year. More details to come. You already know most of the reasons from yesterday's post. Add to it poor scheduling and other things, and it all adds up to Tennessee in 2009.

More tomorrow.

Poor play

Our first game today was at 11:00 AM local time, against Christian Community of Ohio. Before we knew what hit us, it was 19-3, Christian Community. We ended up losing that game 25-8. We played a little better in the second game, but not much, and lost 25-12.

The poor play carried over into the next game we played, against Girard Alliance. We jumped out to a 6-1 lead, but our tendency to not cover well and let balls drop, and our inability to execute simple passes and sets returned and we fell behind 12-10. We caught up and went ahead 13-12, but then couldn't do anything right and lost 25-16. The next game we fell behind early, caught up and went ahead 8-7, then fell apart again and lost again by the same score, 25-16.

The third set of games were against a weak homeschool team from Dayton, OH. We played only a little better, but were able to beat them easily, 25-12, 25-13.

After a long supper break (food was OK), we took on Lebanon Christian (PA) for our last pool game of the day. We seemed to finally figured out what we were doing wrong and won the first game easily, 25-10. The second game was much more competitive. We found out later that it would have been better if it wasn't so competitive. More about that in a minute. We got a couple of small leads, but then Lebanon came back and even took a lead at 22-20. Coach Carr called a timeout. Then the girls got the ball back (22-21) and then Jessi served out for the win, 25-22. Our coverage was much better; our passing and setting, not so much.

Now we waited for the seedings. Because there were three pools, the seeding was weird. The top team from each pool received the top three seeds. The tiebreakers were, I believe, first record, then average points. The remaining top five teams rounded out the Championship bracket. The tie breakers were applied to these five teams - first record, then average points. We were tied for seventh, but lost the tie breaker by nine points so we finished eighth. So we get to face Christian Community to start bracket play tomorrow morning. Pray for us.

So far, the following has been substandard: the rooms, the reffing and the scoring. Oh yes, and our play. We lost two points due to scorer errors. We observed other games where the scoreboard did not keep up with the actual score. And the refs... If you think I'm complaining about the refs because we didn't do well, you're wrong. They were awful. Case in point: we (the fans) yelled about one call that was missed. After the point, the refs (yes, two refs) consulted and agreed with us. Yikes. I wonder if we'll get a cut of their pay.

More tomorrow

We have arrived

After a long and lovely drive across Indiana and Ohio, we have arrived, mostly intact, at the Family First Sports Park. Contrary to what you might have heard, we did stop for potty breaks - don't listen to anything the girls might say. A couple of things:

There is an inch of snow on the ground here. We're definitely not in Tennessee.
The sports park is huge.
The girls' rooms are kinda gross and overcrowded.
The hotel we're staying in is very luxurious - Wingate by Windham.
I'm sick of restaurant food already.
We still don't know the level of the opposition.

More tomorrow

Records

I thought it would be a good time to recap the records of the varsity, JVa and JHa teams. I don't have all the info for the "b" teams, so I can't give you those records.

Starting with the JHa team, their overall record was 12-4-3. Their record in regular-season games (not including tournaments) was 11-4. The losses were to Heritage, Grace, Granger's JV team and Crown Point. [EDIT]

The JVa team finished with an overall record of 15-2-1. Their record in best-of-three matches, or non-pool play, was 13-2, and their record outside of tournament play was 12-1, with the lone loss to Quentin Road. (Their other loss was to Quentin Road in the Calumet tournament final. Calvary/Calumet defeated Quentin Road in a regular season game in Lake Zurich early in the year.)

The varsity is entering national tournament play with an overall record of 36-10-3. In best-of-three or best-of-five matches their record was 22-9. Their record in regular-season matches was 14-3.

So, for all teams listed above (not including the "b" teams, the cumulative records are as follows: overall, 63-16-7; best-of matches, 46-15; non-tournament play, 37-8. Interesting note: The varsity's loss to Franklin Road at the Quentin Road tournament was the only pool play loss among all three teams. Had the pool play in that tournament been the usual two games against each opponent, we may have had an undefeated record in pool play.

Last home games of the season

The Patriots finished up their regular season this evening with victories over Quentin Road and LaLumiere.

After the JVa team opened up the afternoon/evening's activities with a three-game loss to Quentin Road, the varsity played Quentin Road's varsity. The Patriots played Quentin Road early in the year at their place. In that contest, our girls dropped the first game before winning the next two to take the Illinois-rule two-out-of-three match.

Tonight was a little different. Calumet/Calvary started out slowly. The teams were even through 10-10, then Quentin Road took the next two points and went ahead 12-10. It was all Patriots after that, as they outscored Quentin Road 15-4 to close out the game, 25-16. The second game was a mirror-image of the first. Cal/Cal fell behind 12-10, then went on another 15-4 run to win again, 25-16. The third game was closely contested throughout. Quentin Road took a 24-21 lead and it looked like the teams were going to play a fourth. But after three straight points the girls pulled even at 24. Back and forth it went from there until Cal/Cal closed it out with an exclamation point (BIG HIT) by Faith, 28-26.

After the seniors were honored, JVb took the floor to play the LaLumiere JV team. After a two-game sweep by our girls, the varsity took the the floor. LaLumiere was overmatched, and the Patriots won 25-8, 25-8, 25-12.

I announced that Faith was the second-leading ace producer in the NW Indiana region following the game. Here is the website if you want to check it out for yourselves:
http://nwi.com/varsity/?show=leaders&sport_id=6&off_column=total_serves_aces&off_desc=0&limit_num=25.

We say goodbye to Lake Hills for the season (Well, us parents do. The team has a couple of practices yet.) Another great regular season is now complete. We look forward to a successful national tournament in Erie, PA next week.

No state tournament

Calumet/Calvary fell to the Faith Christian Eagles for the second time in the week on Saturday, losing 20-25, 11-25, and 19-25 in the semifinals of the ICSTS Regional (really, state - see earlier post, "Venting") Saturday morning at Heritage Christian High in Dyer.

The game followed the pattern of the game Tuesday. The Patriots fought well in the first game but couldn't quite climb the hill; the second game the girls played as if they didn't think they could win; and they regrouped and played better in the third game. The result in each game was the same, however, with Faith on top each time.

Heritage crushed Duneland Lutheran in the second semifinal as expected. The state championship game, er, excuse me, the regional championship game followed between Faith and Heritage. Faith rolled over Heritage in three straight, 25-17, 25-12?, 25-15.

Faith will go to Horizon Christian in Indianapolis to represent the northwest region in the ICSTS state tournament next Saturday. Barring an enormous upset, Faith will be crowned state champ at the end of those festivities.

Our next games are against LaLumiere and Quentin Road next Tuesday. I believe the first game is the JVa team against Quentin Road's JV team (which I believe is the only team the JVa team has lost to all year) at 3:30. Then the national tournament in Pennsylvania the following week. Then the season is over. (Shedding a tear.)

Warm-up victory

The Patriots picked up their 34th, 20th or 12th victory of the season tonight, depending on how you look at it, beating Community Baptist of South Bend, 25-12, 25-10, 16-25, and 25-16. Hopefully this game served as a warm-up to the big regional opener tomorrow against Faith/Lafayette.

The first two games were won easily by Calvary/Calumet. Community committed multiple errors, while the Patriot played OK but not great. In the third game, Coach Carr sat Jessie Clark and Faith Rohn, and the bench girls struggled with knowing their positions and the other girls had trouble getting used to different girls next to them. They fell behind early, 12-4, got as close as 14-10, traded points to 17-13, then fell apart. Seven points later it was 24-13. The Patriots pickup up three point before losing.

In the third game, Coach put only one sub in, and that seemed to settle the team down, as they finished off the match, 25-16.

Faith at 8:30AM tomorrow - I'm yawning just thinking about it. See you there.

Also, my daughter Katie got engaged tonight to Eric Chappell, a wonderful young man from Escondido, CA.

And another thing...

All-tournament teams. What is the deal with that? A player winning MVP whose team lost in the quarterfinals? This needs to be fixed. And I know just how to do it.

First of all, coaches will have to sign an affidavit at the bottom of the ballot attesting THAT THEY HAVE ACTUALLY SEEN THE PLAYERS PLAY THAT THEY ARE VOTING FOR. I am convinced that some coaches are voting on reputation or what someone else has said. Or maybe just guessing.

Second, ballots will be weighted based on how long the coach's team stays in the tournament. You lose in the first round, your ballot is a 1. You lose in the second round, and you ballot is multiplied by 1.25. Third round, 1.5. You make it to the semifinals, times 2. Or something like that. Shouldn't more weight be given to the performance of the players in bracket play? Shouldn't a ballot from a team losing in the first round and handing it in as they get on their bus to go home be discounted in some way?

More ICSTS/ranking stuff

A couple more things about the regionals and state tournaments:

Last year in the state tournament, Clinton had to play Fulton County in one of the semifinals while Calumet played Horizon, I believe. From the records and head-to-head play, if the tournament was seeded, Fulton Co. should have been seeded #1, Clinton #2, Calumet #3, and Horizon #4. Instead, Clinton had to play Fulton County first. These things should be seeded so the best two teams are lined up to play in the finals.

Case in point: regionals this Saturday. I've already covered the fact the Faith should be in another region for balance. Now I want to look at the brackets and assumed seeding in the northwest regional as currently constituted. There's enough evidence to seed this pretty definitively: Faith #1, Heritage #2, Calumet/Calvary #3, and Duneland #4. But instead of Faith/Duneland and Heritage/Calumet, we have Faith/Calumet and Heritage/Duneland. Go figure.

So here is my state rankings:

1. Faith
2. Heritage Christian
3. Calumet/Calvary
4. Columbus Inferno
5. Clinton

Again, I haven't seen Columbus or Horizon. But from what I've found regarding results on the internet (e.g., Clinton beat Horizon head-to-head; Faith beat Heritage, Clinton and Calumet, and maybe others; Clinton didn't get out of the round of sixteen in the Calumet tournament while Faith, Heritage Christian and Calumet finished first, second and fourth, respectively), this is how I see the rankings.

Faith is finest/first/fantastic

Faith Christian of Lafayette rolled into Lake Hills this evening, and left with a 25-22, 25-16, 25-19 victory.

Faith is a very talented and smart team. I believe they have lost only one game this year, and that was when their best player, Morgan Fox, was out. But the girls were coming off of their best performance of the year, and hopes were high that they would be able to stay with Faith.

The first game was tightly contested. No team had greater than a four point lead, which Faith had at 20-16. From that point, Cal/Cal fought back to within one, and stayed within one or two until Faith finished off the game, 25-22. The second game was controlled by Faith from beginning to end. Their second hits over and dinks seemed to catch the Patriots by surprise nearly every time, and the Faith prevailed, 25-16. The third game was closer, but after the girls got close late, Faith turned it on and won 25-19.

Faith plays a different style than what Cal/Cal is used to. They serve well, hit well, play great defense, block well. But what they do best is find holes and keep the opponents off balance. They are the best dinking team we've faced, and really have no weaknesses. Hopefully the girls will be better prepared for them when we take them on Saturday morning in the ICSTS regionals at Heritage Christian on Saturday.

The JV team won in two straight, preceded by the junior high team's win against Stone Academy in three.

Next game is Friday at home against Community Baptist from South Bend. I believe the JV game begins at 4:30, and varsity at 5:30.

Venting

Some things I need to get off my chest:

Our state competition is through the ICSTS - Indiana Christian State Tournament Series, or something like that. We have really no choice, as we are not a home-school team, so we can't compete in the home-school tournament, but we have home-schoolers on the team, so we can't compete in the IACS tournament. So we have this organization. Three things.

The first is last year's state tournament. We got to stay in Indianapolis all day because the tournament people were worried that the girls would be overstressed by playing two matches without several hours in-between. Please. After watching the girls play their guts out over four matches from 10:30 till 6:00 at the Dayspring Volleyball classic, I would beg to differ. Strongly.

Number two: the groupings. Yes, I understand geography. I understand north, northeast, east, south, even east-northeast. But I also understand flexibility and balance. I understand that a school in Lafayette could be construed to be in western Indiana, northern Indiana or northwestern Indiana. The fact that the powers that be put them in northwestern Indiana shows that the those powers don't understand the concepts of flexibility or balance. Which brings me to my third issue.

The rankings. ICSTS doesn't have much info on their website, but they do have rankings. I have no idea what their criteria are for determining ranking. I am scratching my head trying to figure out why Heritage is ranked fifth while Faith is first. I have no problem with Faith first. I just don't get why the team that lost to them in the finals of our tournament 16-14 in the deciding third game is four notches below. The difference between the two teams is whisper-thin, but the ICSTS people managed to squeeze three teams in between them, one of which lost in the second round of the Calumet tournament.

So yes, I haven't seen Columbus Inferno or Horizon. But I have seen Clinton. They lost in the second round of our tournament. They're a fine team. But they are not as good as Heritage. I don't think they are as good as us. Yet Clinton is ranked third in the state while Heritage is ranked fifth.

So let me get back to my second point. I believe that Faith and Heritage are the two best teams in the state, and we're not far behind. But all three of us are in the same regional, the northwest. Faith certainly could have been placed in the central region, or even the north.

Which leads me to this: if you want to see the real ICSTS state championship, come to Heritage Christian High in Dyer this Saturday. The following Saturday in Indianapolis is bound to be anticlimactic.

So, so close

The Patriots finished up bracket play in the Dayspring Volleyball Classic (Quentin Road Tournament) with their best-played game of the year. But it wasn't quite enough, as the Patriots fell to the Saline Saints from Somerset, Kentucky in the championship game 25-20, 20-25, 15-12.

As mentioned in the previous post, the girls finished first in their pool with a 7-1 game record. The earned the girls a little extra sleep and a game against the eighth-seeded team from the other pool. This turned out to be First Baptist of Danville, IL who the girls played at 10:30. The girls played rather poorly, but were able to beat First Baptist 25-20, 25-15.

Next up was the quarterfinal and Freedom Farm. The girls had beaten them yesterday in pool play, but Freedom Farm was a good team. Even though FF was a better team than First Baptist, the Patriots won more easily. The girls, as they often do, had a little trouble early, but got over that and won the first game, 25-19. Following an evenly-played first part of the second game, the girls put together a good stretch of volleyball, and the girls prevailed 25-14.

Southside was the opponenent in the semi-finals, another victim of the Patriots in pool play. Their style was the toughest for Cal/Cal, with two tall middle hitters. The Patriots took the first game, 25-20. The second game the Mr. Hyde team showed up. The girls seemingly couldn't do anything right and lost 25-13. In the third game, the girls pulled it back together again, (hello Dr. Jekyll) and won 15-9.

The final game was against an enigma of a team from Kentucky, Saline. The girls wore very long shorts and three-quarter length sleeves, and did not appear very athletic. But they were a very fundamentally sound team, especially on defense. They had one big hitter, but their signature was not letting anything hit the ground. They had not lost a game all weekend. Early in the first game, Faith was set up for one of her signature booming hits. Blocked by their star. Again, another big hit. Again, another block. Then one was dug by Saline. Then another. Faith did not quit and began putting some down, but Saline methodically pulled out to a 18-11 lead. The girls did not pack it in, however, and got back into the the game. It wasn't quite enough, and Saline was victorious in the first game, 25-20. One could tell, though, that the confidence of Saline was a little shaken. In the second game, the Patriots took an early lead at 12-4. The teams played evenly until it was 18-11. Saline tightened up their defense again and #10 had some good hits and Saline got a little closer, but Calumet/Calvary held on for a 25-20 win.

The third game, which was to fifteen, started out badly for Cal/Cal. They were down three to nothing when Coach Carr called timeout. This seemed to calm the girls and they pulled ahead, 9-8. Three errors later the girls were down 11-9 and could not get any closer. Saline closed out the game, match and tournament by dinking to an open spot that the girls could not get to, and it was all over, Saline winning 15-12.

The consensus of the adults watching (and coaching) was that this was, far and away, the best the girls had played all year. Even though they lost, they had nothing to be ashamed of. If the girls play at this level the rest of the year, look out.

Big test on Tuesday - Faith of Lafayette, the winner of the Calumet tournament. If the girls play like they did Saturday night, this will be a good game. See you there (Lake Hills at 6; earlier for the JH and JV games. Check the schedule.

Another tournament, another first place finish in pool play

The Patriots continued their streak of winning their pools in tournaments tonight, as the finished first in the National pool at the Quentin Road. After their second pool play game, it didn't look like the Patriots would even finish in the top half.
A mediocre effort was enough to dispatch Westchester 25-18 in the first game. But in that second game, Franklin Road Christian School was the opponent. Franklin Road is from Tennessee, and teams usually don't travel that far unless they think they have a good chance to win. The Patriots found out that Franklin Road was pretty good. The Patriots didn't have to make them feel as welcome as they did, however. Calumet/Calvary played perhaps their worst game of the year and fell, 25-16. Bad decision-making, bad passing, bad setting, bad serving and bad hitting characterized the Patriots' play (did I cover everything?).

Thankfully the next game was against probably the weakest team in their pool, and they won 25-11 (Faith started the game with four straight aces and Coach Carr was able to substitute liberally.) Next up was Southside, who earlier beat Franklin Road. The girls played well, putting pressure on Southside's suspect defense by pushing the ball deep, and pulled out a 25-22 win.

After the tournament rally, Arthur was the next opponent. Arthur's record was not great, but they played a style that was tough for us - lot of middle hitting. Calumet overcame that and came out with a 25-21 win.

Schaumburg was up next. Schaumburg was another one of those teams that was playing better than their record. They played a style that Calumet seems to play well against - scrappy defense. Calumet coasted to a relatively easy 25-15 win.

Freedom Farm was the seventh opponent. FF was like Schaumburg, only with better hitting. Calumet took a 25-17 victory in that game. Which brings us to the last game of the night.

The opponent was Ridgewood, who we had beaten twice already this year. Ridgewood had gone through the entire pool play without a loss. Calumet was entering the last game with one loss, while Franklin Road and Southside had finished with two losses each. We were told that if we lost, we would lose all tie breakers and finish fourth in the pool. If we win, we finish first in our pool - same number of losses as Ridgewood, but winning head-to-head so we win. We didn't know what to expect, as we had watched some of Ridgewood's play, and they looked really good.

The game was close until it was eleven to eleven. Then, after we got the serve back, Jessi Stas ripped off nine straight serves, including a couple of aces. All of a sudden it was 21-11. Ridgewood rallied a bit, tightening up the score to 22-15 and then 24-19, but the Patriots got that last point for a 25-19 win and first place in the pool.

Tomorrow we start bracket play at 10:30 against the winner of one of the two play-in games between the two bottom teams of each pool.

Late report on Tuesday's game

A little late I know, but here is the report from Tuesday night's game.

The Patriots hosted First Baptist of Mishawaka at Lake Hills on Tuesday. This was the first time we faced First Baptist this year, which was refreshing after playing other teams multiple times already this year.

As has occurred often this year, the girls started slowly. After being down 10-7, they rallied to take a 17-15 lead. They then proceeded to give up five straight points to go down 20-17. Faith and Jessi Stas began to pick up their hitting and the Patriots ran off seven consecutive points, putting them up 24-20. They had a little trouble closing out the game, but did end up winning 25-23.

The girls started strongly in the second game, going up 12-4 behind some strong serving by Elizabeth and hitting/back row attacks from Faith. Calumet/Calvary maintained the lead til 18-11, when First Baptist blocked some hits and they got back into the game at 19-15. Cal/Cal scored the next three points, following which the teams exchanged points until the Patriots scored the winning point on a serve by Faith which crept over the net for an "ace". The final in game two was 25-17.

The third game was not very competitive, as the girls kept putting the ball deep on serves and hits, resulting in many errors by FB. The final in game three was 25-10.

The JV won their match against First Baptist's JV team in three, as did the junior high in their game against Victory earlier in the evening.

Up next is the Quentin Road tournament beginning Friday at 11AM. The girls have a chance to improve on their two fourth-place finishes in tournaments this year, and their loss in the quarterfinals last year in this tournament. I will blog tomorrow night after the pool play.

Comparisons

I thought it might be interesting to compare records with last year's team, which started slowly and finished very strong. This year the varsity is 23-6-3 through 32 games. Last year the team was 18-10-4 at the same point in the year. Last year in non-pool games, the Patriots were 12-10 through 22 games; this year the girls are 16-6.

Road victory

The Patriots traveled to Joliet, Illinois this evening to take on Ridgewood Baptist Academy. The JV started things off with a two-game victory over Ridgewood's squad. The varsity game followed. The first game was marked by many unforced errors by the Patriots of all kinds - missed serves, bad passes, misdirected sets, hits into the net, etc. The girls also missed Jessie Clark, who missed her second consecutive game due to illness. Cal/Cal was never in it, and lost 25-14. The second game started the same way as the first. It was 10-4, Ridgewood. Then the Patriots started to tighten things up. Fewer errors and crisper play resulted in a comeback. The girls pulled even at 15. From there on it was all Patriots, and they closed out a 25-17 game two victory. Both teams cleaned up their play resulting in a well-played game. After the Rams took an early 12-8 lead, the Patriots regrouped and caught the Rams at 13. Again, the Patriots finished strong and won the third, 25-17.

The junior high coach reports to me that both the junior high a and b teams were victorious against Glenwood School for Boys and Girls, the JHb team winning two straight against their JH team, and the JHa team defeating Glenwood's JV team in three, winning two after they lost the first.

Next game is home against First Baptist of Mishawaka on Tuesday. Check the schedule.