Volleyball again

Coach Carr is upset because I made a long post about football and haven't posted about the game on Tuesday. Well, first of all, the football game occurred BEFORE the volleyball game. Second, there were TWO football games to cover. Third, I've spent every spare second working on the tournament stuff all week. So there. Anyway, enough whining....

On Tuesday, the girls took on Westville High School, the one perennial public school on the Patriots' schedule. In the past this has been a tough game for the girls; last year we played well and lost in five games. Three years ago, when the team was as strong as it ever was, with Rachel Kizer in the middle, the Patriots also went five games with them, winning that time. So at the beginning of the year we expected this to be a challenging game. However, I had done some research and found out it was a down year for the Blackhawks. For example, they lost in four to East Chicago Central who we beat in three straight. After the JV dispatched their JV team 25-14, 25-11, the varsity took the floor for warmups. Westville looked kind of like the teams we've faced in the past - tall, some good hitting. Their defense has always been spotty, but you can't get a feel for that in warmups. So the teams took the floor. Westville's defense was a little worse than it has been, meaning below average. Their offense was...well, also worse than in the past. Much worse. They had one hitter/blocker. Before we had settled into our seats and finished off our delicious beef sandwiches, it was 14-0. Yes, Cornerstone-level. Well, almost. We did have some nice hits, but the game wasn't close. It was 21-3 at one point, and as usual, the girls lost a little focus during the blowout but still won 25-7.

The second game was only different from the first one in that Westville's scoring was spread out throughout the game. However, Faith was hitting and Jessi was hitting and blocking and Taylor was hitting and blocking and ... well, to sum it up, it was 25-7 again. The third one was one of lost focus again. But even unfocused, the Patriots were better than Westville. The score was 7-7 at one point, and Calvary was only up 14-12 a bit later. The girls then sharpened up, with hits by Faith, Kara, and Rachel, and a couple of aces by Jessi S, and the final point was scored on a back-row hit by Ally, and the girls wrapped it up 25-14.

It's been a little frustrating this year, as we have such a good team while most of the competition has been down. The girls have played thirteen games this year, and maybe three or four have above snooze-level. Well, we'll see what's up the rest of the year, won't we?

Tomorrow the tournament begins. Calvary vs Crossroads at 12:45. We have cool programs with cool binders. The boards have been cleaned up, name signs have been made for the new teams, the moms are preparing enormous mounds of delicious food, and we should be ready to go. I, for one, am going to enjoy every second of it.

Well, Coach, was that long enough?