Another year, another tournament, similar results

A nice matching set of matching sets. That's what I'm calling the completion of Calumet's second successful tournament championship defense Saturday night. Calumet followed up on their second consecutive Calumet tournament championship with their second consecutive Dayspring Volleyball Classic championship, downing the Saline Christian Academy Saints, 25-16, 25-21.

There were three pool winners that came out of pool play with perfect records on Friday - Calumet, Lady Crusaders and Saline. All of you who have been involved with the Calumet program the last couple of years are familiar with Saline - very conservative uniforms, not notably athletic, but extremely successful. They play possibly the best defense we see all year. We'll get to them shortly. Regarding the Lady Crusaders, we didn't judge their level of play correctly when we were scheduled to play them earlier in the year, so we sent our JV. The Lady Crusaders defeated them in three straight, and the reports were that they were pretty good. I guess a perfect pool record here confirmed that.

To get to these teams, however, we had to play a couple of other teams. First up was Nazarene, a little school from Beech Grove, south of Indianapolis. Nazarene has been a fixture here for many years, distinguished by their conservative uniforms and intense coach. I wasn't an eyewitness, but reports are that Nazarene played very good defense and made the girls play. This didn't translate into a close game, however. The final scores were 25-12, 25-13.

I did get there in time to see them play their quarter-final game, which was against Southside, a familiar opponent. The girls seem to have a bit of letdown in this one. Southside has been decent the last few years, but they lost their big middle hitter to graduation and didn't seem to be too imposing. The first game started as expected, and when Amanda put one down it was Calumet, 16-4. Southside decided to make it a game at this point, and we did our best to contribute to that. Kill, Calumet error, dink kill, Calumet error. CCS got three of them back with a kill by Taylor and two aces by Ally, but then Southside ran off five straight, again with some good play and some bad Calumet play. Faith got a kill from the back row at this point, and the lead stayed about six or seven until Southside shanked a pass and Calumet won game one, 25-18. Game two was similar - a big early lead (15-6), even play until it was 20-11, Calumet scored three, Southside scored four (three on CCS errors) and it was 23-15. A Southside bad pass, a Calumet setting error and then finally Taylor closed out the 25-16 victory with a kill. On to the semis.

Now we faced one of the other undefeateds - Lady Crusaders. The girls now seemed to realize it was time to get serious, as it was down to the final four teams. And boy were they serious, especially Faith. Two huge, HUGE hits by her were part of the very strong Patriot start. She wasn't the only contributor. There were aces by Taylor, Holly and Ally; kills by Ally, Taylor, Holly and Rachel; and a smattering of LC errors. When Taylor powered her last ace of the game, the score was 22-7, CCS. A bit of a LGFS ensued, but the girls closed it out, appropriately on a Faith kill, 25-11. Game two was more of a reflection of LC being a bit shell-shocked. The Patriots were still playing well but LC contributed by hitting a lot of balls into the net. Early leads were 4-0, 14-2 and 17-3. The teams then exchanged mini-streaks, with LC closing to 19-7, then Calumet scoring five to make it 24-7, followed by LC scoring four. Taylor then put the Patriots into the finals with a backrow kill.

On to the championship game. As expected, it was Saline. They also hadn't dropped a set the whole weekend. From what I saw of them they were stronger offensively than last year, with Hannah Atkins stepping up to join Sarah Mills as an offensive threat, and of course, the defense was very solid. As the game began, it became apparent that Saline's defense was more than adequate for most of the teams they played, but I don't think they see anything close to Calumet's offense or serving, including Taylors vicious floaters (seems like an oxymoron, but if you've seen Taylor's serves...) and Faith's sharply dropping jump serves. After a Saline hitting error opened the game, Faith put one down. Taylor hit a screaming ace. THEN FAITH PUT ONE DOWN! Wow. I don't think Saline has ever seen a hit like that. I've not seen many. Wow. I think Saline was little shaken here, because three Taylor aces and a Saline hitting error followed. Saline righted themselves a little here, getting two points on a dink and a spike, but then followed that up with an uncharacteristic serving error. Gradually CCS pushed the lead out to twelve at 16-4, at which point Saline, and Sarah Mills in particular, started getting going. The girls also made some errors to contribute to the 11-2 Saline run, which, after a block, brought them back to within three at 18-15. Emily stopped it by getting a kill which was followed by a Taylor ace. After another Saline block, they had three errors in a row, and then consecutive kills by Emily and Faith finished things up at 25-16.

Game two saw Saline getting confidence and playing well. The score was even at four when the Patriots committed two hitting errors. The score stayed within two from here to 12-10, Saline, when Saline, on a CCS hitting error and a kill, moved out to a four point lead. A few points later Saline led 15-12, when Faith made a signature kill, a crushing, loud, thing of beauty. That was the first of six consecutive Calumet points, all earned. There were two aces by Rachel, two more kills by Faith (one on an overpass) and a kill by Ally. Saline started playing better here, but Taylor's kill in this stretch kept the lead at about four. At 21-17 Saline hit one out and they couldn't return an Emily serve on the next point - 23-17 CCS. Saline was not done. They scored the next two on a backrow kill and a shanked pass by CCS. Ally then dinked one for a kill to put the girls within one of the title. The girls seemed to be a little anxious to finish it here, because they committed two straight hitting errors. Then Taylor hit one over and in, Saline couldn't return it, and Calumet was victorious again, winning game two 25-21 and with it, the championship.

You know you have a perennially successful program when fans of teams already eliminated are cheering for your opponents, which is what occurred during the championship game. Oh, well. I guess they just don't appreciate beautiful, powerful volleyball. Oh yes, the awards. Pathway defeated the Lady Crusaders in the third place game, so those trophies were presented. Then Saline got their second place trophy, giving them a first, a second and third place finish the last three tournaments. Calumet was then presented its championship trophy. The all-tourney teams were as follows - Hannah Atkins of Saline, Monich Schlabach of Pathway, our very own Taylor Lindbloom, Annika Albrecht of Crossroads, and to absolutely no one's surprise, Faith Rohn was named MVP. Faith's brilliance maybe isn't appreciated after you see it so often, but for me, watching her play volleyball is a rare privilege. She was awesome in this tournament. I can't wait to watch her at NACA.

Quentin Road and Schaumburg tomorrow at Schaumburg's lovely facility [CORRECTION: it's at Quentin Road]. I wish I could be there, but basketball activities are starting and we have something up with that. I expect full reports from those who can make it. I'm not sure if the varsity will play Friday, but if not, the next game is the one regional game. We play at 3 CDT at Lakeland against either Lakeland or Heritage. Hopefully I can get to my promised rant about this tournament this week. It needs a good ranting.