The post-Boss era begins

That was strange, going to a varsity game which didn't include one of my daughters.

Well, Kelsey was assistant coach, so that wasn't exactly right, but no Boss girls were wearing the uniform.

It was nice not having any obligations. I didn't miss the elevated blood pressure. But while I still feel a part of the program, since almost the whole varsity team were teammates of Kara, it was different. It will be even more different next week when I (gasp) miss a game, something I haven't done since the first game of Kelsey's varsity career four years ago. (And that was only because I didn't know that Lafayette was in the Eastern time zone.)

Anyway, on to the game.

Kankakee Valley was new to the schedule last year, the result of a lot of hard work by Coach Carr to get more public schools on the schedule. It was our opener last year, as this game was. I identify last year's game as the "broken wrist game"; the game in which Kara broke her wrist and missed half the year. Well, despite that we won last year, in three close games. KV has a new coach this year, and we heard that he had shuffled things around quite a bit, moving several freshman up to varsity. This meant that they didn't have a freshman team, which meant our JVB team didn't have a game tonight.

They still have a JV team, however, and the teams began playing at 5:30. I didn't arrive until well into the second game, but the little I saw showed me that, while the team has a lot of room for improvement, there's a lot of bright spots. Serving was strong, and the girls moved well. In a lot of other ways you could tell it was the first game of the year. But it was also the first game of the year for KV, so they also were pretty ragged. CCS won the match in two tightly contested games, 25-21 and 25-19. Coach Franklin (Franklin... that's another strange thing) said that she thought the play was a little sloppy. She mentioned specifically that Rebecca Thompson played well.

The varsity then took the floor. While it looked just like the JV, uniform-wise, I had assurances that yes, this was the varsity. Thanks to Coach Carr's little memory issue tonight, we can now stop talking about how Kelsey forgot the uniforms for the Faith game three years ago. The girls didn't play like a JV team, though. The score was 14-9 in the first game, advantage Calumet, when the girls went on an 11-1 run to close out KV, 25-10. The girls played well, but KV contributed a lot to the loss, with many hitting and serving errors.

The second game was different, in that Calumet jumped out to a 9-0 lead behind the great serving of Taylor and the continued hitting woes of KV. At this point, Calumet starting making the errors and KV pulled to within 12-7. Then a serving error and a hitting error by KV got Calumet back on track. Emily then served nine points in a row, including three aces, stretching the lead to 23-9. The teams traded points until another KV hitting error gave Calumet the second game win, 25-11.

The third game was completely different. KV stopped making all those hitting errors, and their defense got better. They also started to get their slide play working, where the setter back-sets to what appears to be an open spot, but the hitter slides behind the setter, following the ball, and then usually cuts the spike sharply across the net. KV pulled off this play successfully at least four times in the game. KV led at 9-6 and 13-10. They still led 16-14 when Holly made a big block. Then KV made a two hitting errors, Rachel got a back row kill and an ace, and suddenly it was 20-16, CCS. KV put a couple of hits down at this point, but Ally stopped the momentum with a backrow kill. After a Calumet defensive error, Faith put one down and KV made yet another hitting error. The teams exchanged points, with Faith finishing off the game with a nice dink kill. Final score: 25-21.

After the game, KV's new coach informed Coach Carr that they wouldn't be playing us next year. Something about only playing IHSAA schools. Sure.

Anyway, Merrillville on Monday, a new public school on the schedule. I probably won't be there, so let me say now, Go Patriots!