Trifecta

Tonight the girls traveled down to Lafayette AGAIN, this time to play Heritage in the quarterfinals of the state tournament, or the regional finals, however you want to look at it. Yes, to Lafayette to play a school that's about five miles away from our home court.

The girls had played Heritage twice earlier in the season, defeating them in tightly contested games both times. The first time was a regular season game in which Calumet won in three straight, with the first and third games being quite close. The second time was in the semifinals of our tournament. That game saw the Defenders win the second game before succumbing in the third. So we were ready for a competitive game.

Except someone forgot to tell Heritage. At least in the first set. After a Taylor kill to get the serve, Taylor ran off eleven consecutive points to make it 12-0. Taylor lost the serve after a timeout, but Calumet maintained a ten-point or better lead through the end of the game before scoring five of the last six points to defeate Heritage 25-9 in game 1.

The second game was more competitive, especially after Heritage discovered the double block. The second stuff block for Heritage brought them to within two at 16-14, but then Faith put one between the blocks, Taylor blocked one of theirs, they dinked one out, Kara got a kill, a Heritage hitting error, another kill by Kara and a kill by Taylor gave the Patriots a 23-14. At this point the team performed their usual generosity by giving Heritage four points before closing it out with a kill by Taylor and a Heritage hitting error.

The third game kind of started like the first, in that Calumet jumped out to an early 10-3 lead, with three kills from Faith and two from Kara. Heritage then had a mini-run to close to within four. From there the Patriots slowly pulled farther and farther ahead, with some hitting by Faith and a lot of error commited by Heritage. The score eventually reached 24-15, before the LGFS occurred (late-game flat spot). Heritage ran off seven straight points before final getting the winner on a block by Emily Eizenga.

Tomorrow I give my impressions of the first weekend at the tournament.