One down, two to go

This morning the Patriots faced Broadfording of Maryland again. Broadfording had finished fourth in the seeding, and had defeated Cornerstone in the first round earlier this morning. We had played and split with Broadfording yesterday morning. Broadfoarding had finished 4-4 in pool play, defeating Cornerstone twice, splitting with us and Crossroads, and losing twice to Community Christian.

Since their first round game went long, the girls had a lot of time to warm up waiting for them (they played in a different location). So they didn't have their usual early-morning lethargy. They came out smoking, with aces, big hits by Faith and all-around good play. The lead got as big as 21-8 before the you-know-what, but the girls finally finished it after giving fifteen to Broadfording.

The second game was different. We started out a little too loose, and Broadfording really turned up the heat with spikes. Faith also was pounding it, but we were making service errors (four of their first eleven points were from that). We also passed poorly and kept popping it back over the net for them to kill it. From 9-6 to 17-12, we trailed by three to five points. Finally at 17-12, Faith got a nice block. She followed that with two kills, Broadfording served into the net, and Rachel put in an ace. But from there, we broke down again, with a Kara hitting error, a couple of kills by BF set up by poor passing on our part. This was halted by a dink kill by Faith, but then they got another kill, an ace (perfectly placed), and after a hitting error, finished the girls off with a couple of dinks to win 25-19.

The third game started out great. Taylor dinked it and got an ace sandwiched around a hitting error by BF, and we led 3-0. But then they started killing it again. Faith tried to match them, but we kept making errors to offset that. At 9-9, Kara got a big block, they made a hitting error, Jessi and Taylor got kills, and then after a kill by BF, Taylor bumped one over that surprised them and fell, and Faith made a nice hit to finish them off.

Hearts for Jesus awaits us tomorrow at 9:30. We played the game of the season against them yesterday to defeat them 25-16 and 25-19, so they should be ready for us. If we win, we will play the winner of the loser's bracket in this double elimination tournament for the championship. If we lose, we have to win two games, on in the loser's bracket and one in the championship game to win it all.