Three years (continued)

As I was saying as I dozed off yesterday, we faced Heritage in the semis. We had beaten them earlier this year 25-21, 25-16, 25-22. It was probably the toughest game we had all year except for the Faith game. They have one really tall girl who plays very good defense and hits from everywhere - not really hard, but when it's coming from everywhere, it can be hard to defense. Also, the rest of the team is very good defensively, and the team is very well coached - Heritage's defense seems to always to be very well placed.

The first game was as expected. After Calvary got the first two points, Heritage tied it up. Calvary then went out to a 5-3 lead; Heritage tied it up. Until Heritage went up 16-13, no team had a greater than two point lead. But of course Calvary tied it at 16. Heritage got three in a row to make it 19-16. From then on, however, things changed and it was all Calvary. Behind two kills by Jessi Stas, one by Faith and a couple of well placed dinks by Jessie Clark, the Patriots outscored Heritage 9-2 to close out the game, 25-21.

This seemed to light a fire under Heritage. They stormed out to a 7-1 lead, but Faith caught fire with three hits sandwiched around an ace by Rachel brought Calvary to within one. After Heritage scored three, Calvary went on a tear, outscoring Heritage 9-1 to take a 15-11 lead. Calvary still led by four at 17-13 when Heritage started pulling it together. It was 20-20 when Heritage scored three in a row. Calvary got one, Heritage got one, Calvary got two and then Heritage closed out the game, 25-23.

The third game was not like the first two. Calvary jumped out to a 5-2 lead behind kills by Faith, Jessi, and Kara. After a service error, Faith got another kill, Kara had a block to make it 7-3. The girls gave up another point before Faith got another kill. 8-4. Heritage got another point, but it was the last point they would score. Taylor got a kill. Ally served an ace. By the time Ally finished it off with another ace, Heritage looked completely demoralized. Calvary scored the last seven point to win the set 15-5 and the game, 2-1.

Now, it was Goshen, the team everyone was talking about all weekend. Well, one player on the team anyway. Azariah Stahl, superstar-in-the-making. Azariah Stahl, 5'11" with about a 30" vertical. Azariah Stahl, eight-grader. She is already a very, very good volleyball player, with the potential to be great. A couple of our girls had scouted her earlier in the tournament and were not intimidated. They noted that she made some mistakes, and her hits were not super-hard.

The first game against Goshen started out like the girls were a little intimidated. Goshen scored the first three points. But after a dink by Rachel started a little run by Calvary of four points. Thereafter a pattern was established, which seemed to carry through the rest of the set. When Stahl was in the front row and we were serving, Goshen would return the serve to somewhere near the setter. She would set it very, very high to Stahl. Very high because there was no need for deception. Everyone knew it was going to her. Very high so that if the set wasn't perfect, the hitter had time to adjust her approach. So everyone in the gym knew where it was going because of the set, and also because the ball always went to the same person. But it didn't matter. Stahl's point of contact on the ball was so high that either (1) the ball would go over any block attempt or (2) she could direct the ball around the block. So pretty much everytime the set was decent (and most were) Stahl would pound it. Which was OK. Why, you ask? Because then Goshen would serve it and then their weaknesses were exposed. Which were just about everything else besides setting and Stahl hitting. Calvary would set up a hit and it would go down. Then it would start over again. Stahl would work through the front row, getting her three kills or so, depending on if we made an error, and then she would be in the back row, when we would add to the lead. Goshen's defensive weakness were also evident in the amount of points the Patriots scored with aces and dinks. If the girls didn't have some other lapses, the winning margin would probably have been greater. However, finally at 16-16, the girls caught Stahl in the back row and, behind kills and dinks by Faith and aces by Rachel, ran off the final nine points of the game and won 25-16.

The second game was similar to the first, just that the run with Stahl in the back row occurred toward the middle of the game. The teams played evenly until it was 8-8. Jessi had a kill which triggered an 11-3 run. Then Stahl got back in the front row and we made some mistakes, and Goshen scored three to make it 19-14. Stahl then went back to the back row after a point, and Calvary took the second set, the game and the tournament championship 25-17. Three years later and the trophy is back where it belongs.

After a short break, the awards were handed out. The fourth place trophy went to the Fort Wayne Angels, a little bit of a surprise since they had not been a strong team in years past. Third place was won by Heritage; if the seeding was different, they probably would have been second. At least they gave us more trouble than Goshen did.
Individual awards were next. Second team: Katie Vander Kooi from Community, Lori Appleby from Heritage Hall, Staci Redlich from Southside, Cidney Dobrodt from MCAC, Ariana Bray from Schaumburg and Christen Johnson from Ridgewood. First team was our very own Jessi Stas, Melissa Mailand from Fort Wayne Angels, Moriah Randolph from Goshen, Savannah Atsma from WMCAA, Lauren Peterson from Ridgewood, Beverly Black from Quentin Road, and Danielle Zandstra from Heritage Christian. That left one more spot for the all tournament team and the MVP award. Azariah Stahl and Faith Rohn were the obvious two for these spots. Willie Carr paused dramatically before announcing the last of the first-team all tournament team... and it was Azariah Stahl. Faith Rohn had won the MVP.

And it was richly deserved.