And now, Saturday's recap

You knew I would get around to it eventually. And if the play on Saturday was more exciting, I would have been motivated to get to it sooner. So here it is.

As you recall, the girls finished undefeated in pool play on Friday, 10-0, so our first bracket play game was at noon on Saturday. Schaumburg and First Baptist of Mishawaka played to determine which would have the privilege of playing the Patriots, and it was Schaumburg winning 25-11, 25-21. Schaumburg was in the most competitive pool, the Red, and despite finishing 5-5 were only fourth in the pool. So they were better than their seed.

It was 3-3 after the Patriots scored three and gave Schaumburg three on unforced errors. Schaumburg then made a couple of their own errors (serving and hitting). After a Schaumburg kill, Emily matched it and Ally followed it with an ace. A few minutes later a Taylor kill made it 11-7. Rachel then put one down, and the game was effectively over. Ace by Taylor. Kill by Faith. After a well-placed Schaumburg dink, kill by Faith. Kill by Emily. Then consecutive errors by Schaumburg made it 18-8. The team played evenly until 23-13. A nice block by Holly was followed by a nice kill by Taylor and set one was history. Set two was the Faith set. By my computations, she had six kills, two aces and two blocks. Schaumburg really didn't have a chance and Calumet won the set 25-10 and the game.

Calumet's quarterfinal opponent was Indy Silver Lightning, one of Calumet's victims in pool play. Indy got there by upsetting Heritage Hall, the second seed from the yellow pool, winning 15-14 in the third set. I don't know if Calumet started out a bit overconfident. but Indy opened up a 7-5 lead. That seemed to get the Patriots' attention and they got down to business. Actually Indy started to fall apart. Ally got a dink kill, then Indy followed it up with three hitting errors. After an Indy point, it was Eizenga time. A kill by Rachel, then three consecutive aces by Emily. Then the teams exchanged errors until at 15-13 Calumet decided enough was enough. Dink kill by Holly. Ace by Ally. Block by Rachel. Ace by Taylor. Etc, etc. Emily's closing ace made the final score 25-17. Set two was anticlimactic. CCS jumped out to a 13-2 lead and kept it up. The result was convincing 25-8 win and a berth in the semifinals.

In the meantime, because basically I didn't know how good all these teams were, Heritage Christian was facing off against Crossroads in another quarterfinal game on the other side of the bracket. These were the two of the top three teams in the tournament, as far as I could tell (apologies to Quentin Road). But since I didn't know how good Crossroads was, and knowing that they were pretty weak last year, I put them in our pool instead of making them a top seed in another pool. The final score reflected the closeness of the two teams. I believe the scores of the games were 25-22, 20-25, 15-13, with Crossroads coming out the victor.

Calumet's opponent in the semis was Lakeland. Lakeland is coached by Gary Siebert, who has coached for many years against Coach Carr. The difference is that Gary has coached for at least three different organizations while Coach Carr, of course, has been the coach of Calumet. Well I guess you can say that she has coached for three different team names - Calumet Baptist, Calvary Christian and Calumet Christian. Anyway, Gary has an interesting coaching style - mainly that he scouts the opponents and exploits what he sees as their weakness. He uses a lot of dinks on offense (mostly to the setter) and different defensive schemes. Our girls really hadn't seen this, as he had not coached one year and we didn't play against him in another. Most of our girls weren't on the team yet when we played him last.  And one more thing, Coach Siebert's youngest daughter is an excellent defensive player. In the game, it took a while for the girls to get used to his team's play. We also made a lot of unforced errors. The result - a 17-12 lead for Lakeland in set one. However, one of the characteristics of this years' Patriots is long point runs, and that's what happened here. Usually it's either Taylor, Holly or Rachel serving when they get these runs, and in this case it was Taylor. She served twelve straight points after we got the serve back and on a nice kill by Holly on a Lakeland over-pass, Calumet ended set one winning 25-17.

CCS carried the momentum into game two. The Patriots never trailed in this game, leading early at 3-1 and 4-2, and then stretching it out to three, four, five. All the girls played well in this game; errors were reduced and everyone was getting kills. Faith especially started recognizing the defense and putting her spikes in different areas, but everyone got kills, and everyone got excited when Jenna closed out the set and game with a kill. Final score was 25-15.

On the other side of the curtain, Quentin Road was (surprisingly) eliminating Crossroads in three. Crossroads won set one 25-12 and it looked like it was going to be a two-game blowout. Quentin Road seems to be a very mentally strong team, not getting down when things were going against them, while Crossroads showed their youth a little, getting flustered and not handling adversity as well as they might. Quentin Road got it going in set two and won 25-14. The momentum flowed into set three and they took that as well, 15-10, to set up the championship match - Calumet vs. Quentin Road. We have a long history with QR. One of my memories of seasons past was that one of the three losses Calumet had in Rachel Kizer's senior year was against QR, the only regular-season loss they had that year. We also always play in their tournament.

The game itself was not exactly what you would expect for a championship game of a twenty-four team tournament. CCS scored the first three, but then QR scored four. Well, the Patriots gave them to QR. Four straight hitting errors by CCS was the source of those points. The girls settled down and scored the next five. From there they methodically increased the lead, with the final margin of thirteen (25-12) being the largest of the set. And, oh yes, the final point? A kill by Jenna, of course. Game two was a mirror of game one. Tie at 4, then Calumet steadily adding to the lead until it got to thirteen at 20-7, then maintaining a lead around there until a Faith kill (sorry, Jenna) closed out the set, game and tournament, 25-13.

This makes two consecutive Calumet Regional titles for the Patriots, and three out of the last five years. And, befitting a champion, individual honors were many for the girls. Taylor Lindbloom made second team all tournament and Rachel made first team, to the great delight of her family. And to no one's surprise, Faith also repeated as MVP.

The JV plays Grace's teams tomorrow at home and the teams go up against Ridgewood in Joliet on Friday. The JV also has a tournament at Luther East on Saturday. Come out and support your 25-3 Patriots when you are able.