See the pattern?

You don't get a blog entry after a disappointing loss, at least for a few days. That's the pattern.

Anyway, here on the eve of the final final national tournament, NACA, I am going to give you a few observations of the second day of the NCSAA nationals.

First of all, the tournament was a little better run than last year. Improvements: The refs were far better. Good devotional/call to service to kick off the tournament. The girls weren't harmed by the filthy dorms (because they didn't stay there). The only other game going on during the championship game was the third place game. The final was in the evening. Negatives: Still no all-tournament team. Championship team only gets a banner. Weird pool set up to seed the bracket play. Unbalanced pools. Weird brackets in that the second place team (us) didn't get a bye but the fourth seed did (which turned out not to be too bad of a thing for us, because we got to play another game). Dorms still filthy and bad (heard this from other teams that were there for the first time). Not enough play - too few teams. Too many weak teams. Overall impression: they are moving in the right direction.

And now for our play. We were able to play three games because of the weird bracket; the downside was that the first two games were against teams we played the day before - first MCAC. We beat them easily the day before; we beath them easily again, 25-13, 25-9. I'm not going to go into any detail about this game; MCAC is a young team and a young program and is not in our class.

The second game was against Covenant Classical, who we had split with in pool play. It was more a classic Calumet performance this day, even down to a pair of LGFSs (late game flat spots). Game 1 started with hits by several players and a lot of aces by Faith, who broke out the jump serve, and the girls led 24-10. The the LGFS, and Covenant scored eight straight. Finally Calumet closed it out for a 25-18 win. The second game was similar - same assorted kills, same Faith aces, and soon it was 22-11. Then the you-know-what, and the girls kind of stumbled to another 25-18 win.

Christian Community awaited us for the final. They were pretty much the same team that rolled through this tournament last year. No one had gotten close to them this weekend. In game one, the girls had their usual fast start. Christian Community made a few hitting errors, we got some kills and the girls had leads of 12-7, 14-11, and 16-13. Chr. Comm. then pulled even at 16 and from that point on, no one had a lead of more than two points. After a hitting error, CC led 24-23 and could have closed us out. But they made two consecutive errors and we were within one of winning. A stuff block brought them back even, then they got a kill to get within one of winning. Then, of all things, a serving error. But they followed this us with a kill. 27-26, CC. Faith then rode to the rescue - big kill, then a block, then another kill, this one down the line, to give the Patriots a 29-27 win.

Game 2 saw a lot more hitting by Calumet, especially early. Jessi put one down to give our girls a 12-9 lead. CC kill, kill, block, Calumet hitting error, Calumet hitting error and all of a sudden it was 14-12, CC. Kills by CC and errors by the Patoriots enabled CC to pull ahead and win, 25-20.

Game 3, oh boy. Calumet had a 16-10 lead at one point. Our girls were hitting the ball like crazy and it looked really good. Starting there we had MGCS (middle game comatose spot). Before the finally served the ball into the net, they ran off thirteen straight points. After they finally broke the streak, Taylor had a kill for our last point, and CC took game three, 25-18.

Game 4 was anticlimactic. The girls stayed close up until 16-13, but then it became a CC killfest. CC outscored Calumet 9-2 from that point on and won game 4 and the match.

Now we are at NACA. The competition looks fierce. We start tomorrow at 9 central time against a state champion, undefeated team from Maryland. I am excited.