Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Another IHSAA foe down

East Chicago Central has not been one of our toughest IHSAA opponents since we began playing them a couple years ago, and this year's match was no exception. I have used the word "perfunctory" to describe some wins in prior seasons, and was trying to come up with a new one for this game, but perfunctory just fits too well.

The first game might have got you thinking otherwise, however. Faith got us out in front 8-4 with three aces wrapped around a Taylor kill, and it looked like we were on our way to a rout. Not so fast. We didn't seem to want it too badly, as the girls made three unforced errors in a row. After an ECC dink, it was tied. From there we just seemed to keep shooting ourselves in the foot (feet?) with more errors. Finally Taylor snapped off a couple of ace serves to give the Patriots a three-point lead, and NOW it looked like a blowout. The lead was 19-13 when ECC called a timeout. The lead then eroded back down to two at 22-20, but CCS finished the game with a crescendo. First a Taylor hit. Then a big Faith hit. Then a CONCUSSIVE Faith hit - there, I did get to use a new big word. 25-20, Patriots.

Game two fit the description more aptly. The girls errored (verbification of error) their way to a 3-1 deficit, before the Taylor serving machine was fired up. Twelve points later, including two aces, the lead was at 10. Taylor missed a server here because I think she was tired. That was just a temporary glitch, as ECC seemed to lose any intensity they might have had in Game 1, and CCS soon had a 22-5 lead. A mini-LGFS ensued, but just a mini one, and the girls closed out a 25-8 Game 2 win on an Ally kill.

Coach substituted liberally in game three. By the time the game was about half over, Taylor, Faith and Ally were on the bench. The subs played very well for a while, but then they proved that they weren't immune to the LGFS virus. The Patriots held leads of 15-3 and 19-7, and still led 20-9 when the wheels came off. Maybe just one wheel. Lots of errors followed, but the girls finally closed it out. Taylor was subbed back in and she got the honors of making the clinching kill in the 25-18 win.

The girls are now 9-1 on the season. Maxpreps will show us as 11-1, as MCAC uses Maxpreps and listed their loss to our JV team as a varsity game. This is OK as long as the JV keeps on beating those varsity teams - no pressure, girls :-). The team will be making the long, very long, trek down to the Indianapolis area for a Thursday game against Bethesda Christian. I will not be making that trek. Just a bit too far to go for a weekday game. But I will be there for the Kankakee Valley tournament on Saturday. That will likely be even tougher than Lafayette Central Catholic last week, but our girls are pretty good. It should be fun.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The final

Our first-place finish in our pool earned us a spot in the championship game against Loogootee (pronounced lew-GO-tee, I think), a team from southeast Indiana about halfway between Indianapolis and Evansville. Loogootee is a very tall team, with two middles, one about six feet tall and the other about six-two. From watching some of their pool play, we saw that they ran most of their offense through these two, but they also had a couple of capable outside hitters. If that wasn't enough, their setting was very good and their defense was good. Hmmm. Where's the weakness? But, of course we're pretty good too.

The match began with no team scoring two points in a row until CCS scored three on a Loogootee hitting error and consecutive Faith aces. 6-4, Patriots. Loogootee put two hits together, which we answered with a Taylor kill and an ace by Lauren. Calumet started putting some distance between the two teams as Taylor was scoring on some hits and Loogootee committed a couple of errors. The lead reached six at 14-8 after a nice kill by Faith. The teams essentially traded kills for a while, but with CCS leading 19-13, we started making errors while Loogootee made kills, aces and blocks. Loogootee tied it at 21 on a Patriot hitting error and took the lead on a kill. As has happened countless times over the last two or three years, Faith took over. Kill. Kill. Block. 24-22, CCS. Not over yet. Kill by Loogootee, We muff a serve receive. Tie game. Faith put another down and Loogootee missed on a kill and game 1 went to Calumet, 26-24.

Game 2 was similar. Only in this game the lead never got to six. This game was more of a dink fest than game one, but both teams were putting the ball down one way or another. Rebekah put one down the line to give us a 3-0 lead. Loogootee caught us at 4. We pushed the lead up to four at 9-5 on an Ally block, and for a while we kept the lead between two and four points until a CCS hitting error and a Loogootee kill make it 15-15. Faith broke the string with a kill, but Loogootee was on a roll. They went up 19-16 on a series of kills. Behind a kill and block by Ally we got back to within one, but we seemed to be tiring. After getting out muscled at the net for a point, consecutive bad hits by CCS were the final points in a 25-21 set win for Loogootee.

Once again in game three we started out with a lead. At 7-5 Loogootee called a time-out. We then committed a service error. Loogootee answered with a service error of their own. They scored the next two on a dink kill and a spike, which we answered with a dink kill by Ally. We were slow getting the block over and Loogootee powered one down. A block, a dink kill and another big kill made it 12-9. Faith pulled us back to within two, then did it a point later with another kill. Loogootee then smashed another and the final point was a tough serve we couldn't handle. 15-11, set, match and tournament to Loogootee.

Overall, the girls played very well all day. I'm going with the excuse that we had to play in an un-air-conditioned gym all day until the final while Loogootee played in the cool gym. Or maybe Loogootee was just better than our girls today. Either way, it was a lot of fun. Tuesday we continue the IHSAA stretch of the schedule with a match at East Chicago and then this weekend we have our second eight-team tournament at Kankakee Valley. We have Merrillville, Griffith and North Judson in our pool. See you there.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Last year seventh; this year second

Quite the improvement. To be fair to last year's team, the competition was a bit better last year, and we were thisclose in all three of the losses we had last year (which were all of the losses we had all year).

This tournament starts with pool play. The eight teams are divided into two pools of four. Each team plays the other three teams in its pool and then the first, second, third and fourth place teams play each other.  Our pool included Andrean, Eastern Greene, and Rockville. Eastern Greene and Andrean were in our pool last year, and were two of the teams that barely beat us. We also faced Rockville last year in the final game and defeated them. First up was Eastern Green, 32-5 and a class 2A quarterfinalist last year. Their big hitter was back. Their setter, apparently was not. EG's setter was called for doubling at least eight times during our match. We fell behind in each of our two games, but at 7-7 in the first game we took off, with hits spread around among all our hitters. The Patriots moved to a 17-12 point lead and never lead by less than four in the 25-16 win. Game two was quite the same; the tie this time was at 8. Calumet gradually opened up the lead to nine at 22-13 behind good hitting, especially a big one by Rebekah, and they soon closed out the win at 25-17.

Andrean, the big Catholic school in Merrillville was our next opponent. Andrean was ranked one behind us in the preseason Times poll and had beaten us in three last year. Our game today with them started with sloppy play from both teams. We led 7-6 when Andrean cleaned things up, while we didn't. The 59ers went on a 10-2 run with some help from us, but mostly big hits on their part. We made a mini-run and got to within three, but that was it and Andrean took game one, 25-19. Game two was much cleaner. There was no lead greater than one until a Taylor kill made it 8-6. Three points were added to make it a five point game, but Andrean came back to tie it. Calumet went on a 8-2 run and didn't trail again. A Taylor dink finished the game at 25-21. Game three saw a great comeback from CCS. The girls went on a streak of errors. Andrean augmented those with a couple of kill.  11-5, Andrean. In a fifteen-point game, that score usually means the game is over. Not so fast. Kill, Taylor. Hitting error, Andrean, Kill, Ally. Hitting error, Andrean. Time out, Andrean. We had a serving error coming out of the timeout. 12-9, Andrean, but consecutive dink kills by Holly and Taylor, an Andrean hitting error and a back row kill by Ally gave us the lead. Andrean dinked one in to tie it at 13. Faith then put one down and Taylor finished off the amazing comeback with an ace. What a game.

Game three was against Rockville. They had lost a lot of their team from last year to graduation, and were the weakest team in the pool. Coach Carr put in all the subs, and the girls relaxed a bit, playing down to their competition. The did open up a nine-point lead in set one, but then they let Rockville back into it and ended winning 25-19. Set two was more of a struggle to find rhythm from the beginning. Finally the girls got it together, and after trailing 16-15, stretched it out to a 25-18 win to put us into the championship game. More about that tomorrow.


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Second IHSAA opponent; second win

Arrggghhhh!!!

Thought I ought to start with that, since we played the Pirates tonight.

Yes, we traveled to Merrillville tonight to play the Pirates and came a away with one of the following: 1)their first win; 2) their third win or 3) their fourth win. It was their first regular season win if you count Saturday's games as a tournament. It was their third win if you count Saturday's games as regular games. It was their fourth if you look at Maxpreps. Victory included the game against our JV as a varsity game, so it shows up as as a varsity game for us as well.

We beat Merrillville twice last year, once 3-1 in a a regular season match and 2-1 in the Kankakee Valley tournament. As I remember, they were a somewhat disorganized team with some good offense. This year they were quite different - very good defense and not much offense. Their offense was the disorganized part of their game, but their digging was good. We jumped out to an early lead behind hits by Taylor and Faith and a defensive error, but Merrillville tied it at three. We continued the good hitting but were making a lot of errors and Merrillville stayed even for a while. At 6-6 Lauren got a kill followed by a nice dink by Ally. Calumet added to the lead from there, pushing it to five at 13-8. After three consecutive errors by our girls, they got it back together and stretched the lead to 18-11. A nice tandem block by Faith and Lauren made it 23-13, we made an error and Lauren got a kill. 24-14, game point. And then a LGFS. Six straight from Merrilleville before they served one out and the first game was finally ours, 25-20.

Game 2 was a mirror image of game 1, at least for a while. The Patriots opened up a little lead, Merrillville brought it back to even. This time, however, MHS kept it going. A dink followed by a two nice blocks gave them a three point lead. We tied it at 11, and it stayed a one or two point game until a MHS ace and dink kill put them ahead 20-17. We evened it up again at 22 with kills from Lauren and Taylor sandwiched around a Faith ace. The teams traded points to 25, then Taylor decided it was time be done, finishing it with consecutive kills.

The third game saw MHS get the first two points, and then it was even for a while. Two MHS errors plus a dink kill by Ally made it 12-9. A little bit later two Calumet errors brought MHS to within 1, but from there it was all Patriots. Four Faith kills, including the clincher, gave Calumet the game, 25-16.

My reports were that the girls won both games tonight, easily defeating Lakeshore Thunder 25-5, 25-9 and 25-13. The match against Crossroads was tough as expected, with the girls needing four games to defeat them. The scores, I believe, were 25-13, 25-18, 20-25, and 25-14. I'm not sure about the last game. However, they did win and their record is now 5-0. Or 3-0. Or 6-0.


































Saturday, August 20, 2011

Strange but good opening to the season

The girls traveled to someplace in the middle of Indiana today to play what originally was to be a tournament, but turned out to be a tri-match. The first opponent was the Goshen Blue Blazers, a team that we may play three or four times this season, depending on what happens in a couple of tournaments. As I mentioned in my last post, Goshen took a game from us in the ICST semi-final last year, the only set we lost to a non-IHSAA school all year, including NACA. The team has scrimmaged Goshen last week, and Coach Carr thought that Goshen was not as good as they usually are. Goshen and the host school, Argos. Argos, as we all know, was Odysseus' dog and was also the name of Cerberus' brother - Cerberus, of course, being the three-headed dog that guarded the Underworld. What this has to do with volleyball, I'm not sure.

Anyway, back to the match.

Goshen looked much better that than they had in the scrimmage, according to Coach Carr. And the our game with them proved it. After it went to 2-0 Calumet on a Faith kill, things started going a little sideways. Goshen ran off three straight to go ahead. It went back and forth from there, with both teams making mistakes and both teams making some good plays. CCS went up 10-7, then made a series of consecutive errors. Hitting errors, net violations, balls dropping. Finally Taylor got a kill, but Calumet was still down 13-11. A couple of Goshen errors and an Ally kill later, and CCS regained the lead. Behind a Faith kill and a Holly ace Calumet went up three again, and they held it there. Finally a Taylor kill gave the girls a 25-22 win.

Game two saw the girls go out to a 6-1 lead. In that run there was nice kill by Holly and a block by Lauren and Mandi. Then the errors came right back and it was 6-5. It was then Goshen's turn to make some errors and the lead went up to six at 13-7. Calumet didn't let them get any closer than three, and Faith closed out the match and the 25-19 game win with a kill.

The less said about the match against Argo, the better. The only thing worth mentioning, and the reason that both games weren't single-digit points was the first appearance of the season of the dreaded LGFS, which occurred in the first game. For the uninitiated, LGFS stands for "late-game flat spot", a trademark of Calumet over the last few seasons. CCS was up 21-7 when it struck. Six Dragon points later CCS finally broke the streak. (Yes, they are the Argos Dragons.) All but one of the six points were from our errors, including an out-of-rotation. CCS then woke up and put the Dragons away, 25-13. Game two was more or less serving practice with Calumet scoring at least eight aces, including four by Ally to open the match. The Patriots ended up scoring the last thirteen points to win 25-2. Yes, 2.

It was good to get the first games of the year under our belt. This week: Merrillville on Monday, and Crossroads and a new team, Lakeshore Thunder, on Tuesday in a trimatch at Lake Hills. We know Merrillville and Crossroads will be tough, and we've heard that Lakeshore is pretty good as well. Should be a good, tough week, climaxing on Saturday in Lafayette at the Lafayette Central Catholic Tourney. See you there

Thursday, August 18, 2011

More preseason stuff, recap of scrimmage

So, apparently the varsity is afraid of the parents. That's the only reason I can come up with that they didn't play us Tuesday night. I guess they will retain their pride this way, losing to the alumni instead of us creaky old parents. Because we would have beaten them as well, as we did the JV.

And another season begins. A spirited night of scrimmaging kicked it off Tuesday night. The junior high played an inter-squad game, followed by the parents (not necessarily players' parents, but I do believe all those playing were, in fact, parents). The varsity/alumni game finished things up for the evening. I do believe the alumni game had been a fixture up until a couple of years ago. Coach had a little trouble rounding up enough alumni, so the parents stepped in. The alumni, plus a couple, were able to form a team this year, so things were back to normal. Oh, and by the way, a hearty welcome to the newest member of the Calumet volleyball family, Katie Welman, formerly of Highland High and a junior, I believe.

Jesse Tucker will be filing reports on the JV games, so you will be able to read recaps of those games as well. Hopefully she will be able to step in for me when I am not able to attend games as well. I think Jesse will have a lot to write about, because the JV team looks very good this year. As usual.

The Times had their season preview of the area high school volleyball season. The good news is that Calumet is the #7 team in the preseason rankings and Faith was named as a preseason all-region player. The bad news is that first, Faith is listed as playing for Calvary Christian, and secondly, there is no scouting report for the Patriots. Not sure what happened there. But it is still pretty exciting to be ranked, and to have Faith get a little more recognition.

Finally, the season opens up with what will now be a tri-match at Argos High, with the host school, Calumet and the Goshen Blue Blazers participating this Saturday. Goshen should be pretty tough, as they were the only team to win a set from Calumet last year that wasn't an IHSAA school. Argos has not been very strong recently, but you never know. I'm looking forward to another great Calumet volleyball season.


Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Latest first-post-of-the-season in a while

Hey, look! Another volleyball season!

Here we are, August 10, and I haven't done a volleyball post yet this year. What is wrong with me? And with all this summer activity, too, no less.

Seriously, this off-season has been full of news. The saddest, of course, was the news that Amanda had leukemia. Most of you know about that; we are cautiously thankful of the progress so far in her treatments and pray that soon we will hear the news that she is in remission, and that she can participate in some part of this season. 

The trip to Cedarville for a summer tournament was also something different. Seven teams from public schools, Shekinah Christian and Calumet were the teams involved in this, which took place the weekend after the Fourth of July. This started out on a Thursday. Kelsey and I were able to head out there Friday morning, so we were able to witness most of the games. As it turned out, there were two teams that were quite a bit above the rest: Shekinah Christian and us. Both teams mowed through the pool play schedule without being tested much. Our pool game was tightly contested, with Calumet coming out on top in two. The bracket part of the tournament was double elimination, and we both waltzed through our respective sides of the bracket to get to the first rematch. This match was quite different than the pool match. In the first game, we stayed close for quite a while. A Holly kill made it 14-12, Shekinah. A few kills and Calumet errors later it was 19-12. The teams traded points until a Shekinah block closed it out, 25-17. It was 4-2 Calumet, then 5-4 after a Faith kill, and 6-6 after a Shekinah serving error. We were still in it when another Shekinah error made it 10-8 in favor of Shekinah. But Shekinah scored eight of the next nine points, mostly on kills, and the game was essentially over. A back row kill ended it 25-13. On to the losers bracket. Another cakewalk led to the rematch with SCC. The first game of this match started very slow, with the girls down 6-1. Dinks and kills contributed to five straight points and it was tied. We stayed even, but at 11-11 SCC began to open up some room, and went on to win 25-19. Game 2 was very even. No team had more than a two-point lead after SCC opened up 3-0 until a double block by Faith and Lauren gave the second game to Calumet, 25-22. An avalanche of kills by SCC in game three made sure we didn't really have a chance. I counted ten kills in the 15-5 wipeout.

Shekinah's team was made up of juniors that had been playing together for several years (very similar to CCS last year), and were within a whisker of going to Ohio's final four last season. We were trying a working in a lot new players and the team had stretches of very ragged play. Of course, that's what these games are for, to get the less experienced players some playing time and to work on getting the new girls worked in. From what I heard about camp, much improvement was made in integrating the new players.

I mentioned some of the awards received by our players for their play last season, but I neglected to mention that Ally's club team finished second at the AAU national volleyball tournament in Orlando in June, and Ally was named to the U14 All-American team. Congrats to Ally!!

Just a few notes about former players and opponents. Danielle Zandstra will be playing basketball for Prairie State this upcoming season - no volleyball for her, apparently. Emma Kile (Calvary-Butler, PA) will be entering her senior season at Clearwater Christian this fall. Last year she was named the 2010 AVCA/NCCAA National Player of the Year. Rachel Eizenga will be playing for South Suburban College this fall. . And Kara Boss received recognition in another sport.

Scrimmages next Tuesday, then the season opens at the Argos Tournament on either Friday or Saturday. It will be very hard to even match last year, but I'm looking forward to see how the team works to reach that level again. Keep checking on the blog for updates and on Maxpreps for stats and other team info.

Go Patriots!!!