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!!!