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.