Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Mr. Negativity

Guess what, boys and girls? It's time for Mr. Boss' periodic rant. This time the subject is the ICSTS. Yes, the Indiana Christian Something Tournament Something. You remember last year I ranted about this organization, when I went on and on about the seedings and regions. Well, they're up to it again.

First topic of today's screed, kids, is prophecy. Foreknowledge. Clairvoyance. The ICSTS powers-that-be have already seeded the state volleyball tournament. Yes, even before the season has started. Even before some schools know if they'll even have a team. So apparently they know how teams, that may or may not exist, that are made up of teenagers, will perform several months from now. I wish I had that gift. Maybe if I became an ICSTS official, I would get it.

Next we're going to talk about time. Yes, time. Like time zones, and teenagers' body clocks and stuff like that. Indiana is a strange state (insert Indiana joke here) in that it has two time zones. Also, it has changed its mind about DST and I think now the whole state observes DST. Anyway, six counties in the northwest corner and six counties in the southwest corner are in the central time zone; the rest of the state is in the eastern time zone.

So, there's three teams out of the nineteen (if all the schools have teams - see two paragraphs above) in the Central time zone. Calvary/Calumet is one. Now, the way the tournament is set up, two games out of the eighteen needed to get a champion are scheduled at 8:30. 8:30 Eastern time. Which, of course, is 7:30 Central time. So guess who is scheduled to play at 8:30/7:30 Central? Very good, boys and girls. You are correct. Calvary/Calumet.

Let's continue on the time theme. Even if all teams were in the Eastern time zone, 8:30 is pretty early. Especially for teenagers. So it's a reward to play later in the day, right? And you want to reward your higher seeds, correct? So we must be seeded very low. We must be pretty bad.

But NO! We're the third seed!

Yes third.

Pardon me while I scratch my head for a while.




Thank you.




One more time thing. I may have addressed this from last year, because this goofiness was in place in prior years as well. Let's just say we win our first game. Let's say we're so good, we win even though the girls are still sleeping (shhh.) Well, I guess it's OK that we play so early, because the girls can go back to bed. Why, you ask? Because they don't play again until 4:00 PM!. In the interest of saving me some time, let me just quote from a blog entry made last season: "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."

So, we get to entertain ourselves in beautiful Lafayette for six hours until we play again. We could watch some of the other teams play, but that would still leave us with several afternoon hours, because the last game of the first round is at 1:00. Same thing the following weekend. We would play at 1:10 (why not 1:00?) and then if we win, we wouldn't play until 7:00 (not 7:10?). I think we will have covered all there is to see in Lafayette the first weekend. Plus we have a two hour drive home after the game, so we won't get home until late on Saturday. At least the time change works in our favor here.

So there you have it. It's still a long time until the tournament. Maybe things will change. I can only hope.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Season finale

It seems like we just started the season last week and now it's over. Oh, wait. We did start last week. The season wrap-up was a quad at Gurnee on Monday, which included the same teams as last Friday, plus Parkview Baptist Academy, a school in Northlake.

We came with only six, as the DeCooks had another engagement and could not make the matches. However, this left us with what essentially was players from last year, so the guys were used to playing with each other. Basically the difference was the setters - Steve and Tim replaced Eric and Craig. I moved Josiah up to start right front in place of Neal, and put Justin in where Josiah usually starts, opposite from where Josiah started this game. Otherwise the starting lineup was the same.

Strange the difference three days makes. We opened against Crossroads, which lost to both us and HRK on Friday without taking a game. And it looked like more of the same on Monday. Justin seemed to recover his serving touch, Stephen, serving underhanded, was dropping them into the holes, Jake was pounding the ball, we had some good blocks and won rather easily, 25-15. And, fitting with our usual pattern, we started getting sloppy in the second. Poor passing and setting led us to a second game loss, 25-17. We picked it up a little in the third, but poor passing continued to be our Achilles heel. Crossroads jumped out to an early lead, and maintained it for a 15-10 match-clinching victory.

The second game was against the host team, the HRK Eagles. We eked out a three-game win on Friday, and Monday's game was similar. As fitting our usual modus operandi, we won the first game. I don't have the score, but I believe it was about 25-19. And in the second game, we predictably struggled, even after I told the team that this was our first game. This game was also close, but I believe we lost, 25-20. The third game didn't follow exactly the same as Friday's but the final score was the same. But instead of coming from way back, we actually held a 14-12 lead. We then gave up two straight points, but then pulled out the next two points for a 16-14 match-winner.

After another short break, we took on Parkview. We had watched a couple of their games against the other teams, and knew that they weren't very polished. The first game reflected this, as we jumped ahead early and led at one point 24-11. The guys (and Kelsey, who I subbed in a bit) then relaxed a little and gave up a few points, but eventually got the last point for 25-15 win. In the second game I subbed Kelsey in more (even illegally) and we tried to run a 6-2, which we never practiced. Anyway, we still won 25-17.

So we finished the tournament 2-1, for a second place finish. For the record, Crossroad completed the day undefeated for the tournament victory. To show how close the teams were, Crossroads finished last on Friday. The final record for the season was 4-2, a great improvement over last year when we were 0-4.

We sadly say good-bye to Jake, Tim and Josiah. Jake and Josiah were also with us last year, and Tim joined us this year. We appreciate their participation and attitude and will miss them. Looking forward to next year - tell your friends and neighbors, we will need some new players for next year.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Tourney Champs!

That looks pretty impressive, doesn't it? Well, we WERE the team with the best record when the evening was over. Even though there was only three teams in it. This tournament was supposed to be four teams, but two different teams dropped out so it was down to three: us, Crossroads, and HRK.

After a lovely two-hour trip up to Gurnee, we were ready to take on Crossroads, the team we lost to on Monday. Except they got caught in the same traffic as we did, and hadn't arrived yet. But after we warmed up for a bit, they showed up. We got underway by about 4:20. We played like we did the second game on Monday, and we steadily pulled away and finished with a 25-14 win. The second game was a little tighter, but we won the second game 25-20, and took the match. W

We were on for our second game right away, against the hosts, HRK. We almost beat them last year the second time we played them, so we were pretty hopeful going in. They, however, are a well-coached and experienced team, with one player we found out later that plays high level club ball. Our guys were on, with good hitting from Jake and Neal, and we came out on top 25-15 in the first game. The second game began with the Patriots not serve-receiving well, and we fell behind early. After finally stopping the opening run by HRK, we continued to struggle with our defense and setting, and eventually fell behind 14-5 and 18-11. We made a little run, but ended up losing 25-18. Which brings us to the exciting game three.

We started out again not serve-receiving well, and steadily fell behind. Finally we were down 14-9. We got the serve back, which brought us to 14-10. Luke Lorenz was serving. I had been subbing him out for Justin to serve, but this time I left him in. I regretted that decision at first, as his first serve went into the net. As were coming to grips with what we thought was the loss of the match, the ref blew the whistle... and gave us the point! It seems that HRK switched to early, so they were out of rotation. Our point. 14-11. Luke then served one that barely made it over, but it did, and we got that point. 14-12. Then his serve got stronger, and our play was solid. 14-13, then 14-14, then 15-14 in our favor. One more serve by Luke, we hit it to where they couldn't return it, and we won.

After HRK dismantled Crossroads 25-12, 25-14 (I think), the four-on-four tournament was to begin. We split our team and were ready to go. However, Crossroads had had enough and decided to leave. So it was just four teams; two of ours and two of HRK's.
Our A team struggled to beat HRK's B team, and then their A team beat our B team soundly. The consolation game was taken rather easily by our B team, and after a very competitive game, our A team fell to HRK's, 15-13.

Monday we take on these two teams as well as Parkview, again at Gurnee. Matches start at 2:00. Come on out. Stop at the Jelly Belly factory. Make a day of it.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

First game of the very short season

The HSRC Patriots boys' volleyball team traveled up to Sugar Grove on Monday to open the very short season. After some informal practices on Saturdays at Lake Hills and two practices at Elim, we thought we were ready. We weren't, and we went down in five games, 21-25, 25-12, 25-20, 22-25, 19-25.

We didn't have a chance to practice with a replacement setter for Tim, so we were trying out setters in the pregame warmup. Justin was our first choice, so he started as setter. It turned out that Crossroads had one really gifted player and the rest of the team hustled, but were not very polished. We seemed tight, didn't pass well and lost in the first game, 25-22. The second game was a different story. We served well, played a little better defense, blocked well and won 25-12. We tried Kenny as setter in the third game. Crossroads pulled it together more in the third game, but we also played well and won 25-20. The fourth and fifth game were also closely played. We started getting a little sloppy in the front row, and didn't cover well. Crossroads seemed to get better as the night went on and pulled out the last two games by the same score, 25-19.

I hope to get the story of tomorrow's game and Monday's a lot sooner. And hopefully have more information.