The preliminaries are over; time for the big event

All the formalities required to get to this point have been completed. It's time for the main event.

Calumet vs. Faith.

The game we all knew was inevitable is now upon us. Last night in Lafayette, the Patriots quickly dispatched the Goshen Blue Blazers, 25-6, 25-8, 25-18, after which the Eagles of Faith Christian even more quickly ended the season of Horizon Christian, 25-10, 25-10, 25-5.

As you all know, we faced Goshen in the championship game of our tournament about a month ago (a month already!), and the game was, while not really close, entertaining and well-played, and won by Calumet 25-16, 25-17. We had watched a little of Goshen's win over Clinton the previous week, and they looked pretty good while winning in four. So we figured on a good game for the semifinals. Well, it wasn't a good game.

The first set began with great hitting. Jessi set the tone with a big hit to begin the game, which was followed by an ace by Taylor. Then a kill by Faith, a nice block by Jessi, a kill by Jessi, a power dink by Jessi - it was the Jessi Show for a bit - and another ace by Taylor before she served one into the net. 7-1, Calumet. After some point exchanges which included a couple of kills by Goshen's eighth-grade star, Faith began serving. And serving and serving. Her jump-serves completely befuddled Goshen as she served eleven straight points, including six aces. The girls gave up a couple of points before finishing the set.

The second was similar to the first, except the stellar serving streak was by Jessi, and it came earlier in the game. At 2-1, Calumet, Jessi began serving and served until it was 14-1. She had five aces in that stretch, and was helped along with four kills by Faith. A few points later it was 17-3 when Goshen took a timeout. That seemed to settle them a little, and they kept the deficit steady to 21-7. But Calumet outscored them 4-1, with a kill by Kara finishing the set.

The third set seemed like it was going to go like the first two, even though Coach Carr had moved people around and changed a starter. First Taylor got a couple of aces, and then Rachel did, and pretty quickly it was 8-2. Then a little streak of poor defense afflicted the Patriots, and Goshen got to withing 12-9. The girls righted the ship for a bit, though, and stretched out the lead to 19-13. A block and a defensive error gave Goshen a couple of points, Calument got those back, then Goshen put one down and served an ace but followed that up with a service error. Taylor got a kill to make it 23-17, but a service error of our own followed. Finally, Kara got a dink kill and Emily fittingly ended the game with an ace.

We then ran out to grab a bite before returning to watch the anticpated annihilation of Horizon by Faith. But when we walked in, it was 7-7. Hmmm, what's going on here. But soon the earth returned to its axis and Faith began establishing its dominance. From that point Faith outscored Horizon 18-3 to win 25-10. The second game went like the first, with Faith starting a little slow, but then imposing it superiority bit by bit to win the second by the same score. Horizon was done for the third game and Faith rolled 25-5. Faith is a very precise, methodical team. They don't get flustered and they play very evenly. They're not prone to emotional streaks; they just play their game and wear down the opponent.

Today's game should be fantastic. We're a different team than when we barely lost to Faith five weeks ago. Everyone come on out and make some noise. We haven't had to do that for a while.