What a difference a year (and a player) make

Last year the Patriot defeated the Defenders of Heritage Christian High twice, but both matches were competitive even though CCS won in three straight both times. The second time, in the state regionals, Heritage scored 20 or more in all three games. Tonight the two teams met and it was a different story.

It's interesting all the different ways one player can influence a team. Heritage no longer has Danielle Zandstra, who has graduated and gone on to college basketball. Danielle stood about 6'1" or so, and if someone had not seen her play, would have figured that she was a dominant front row player. But while she did play great defense at the net, she did not hit the ball very hard - her offense wasn't really her strength. Her impact on her team was a little more subtle. She hustled as much or more than anyone. Her defense in the back row was as good as anyone else on the team. From my observation, though, it was her leadership that this years' team missed the most. She was calm and encouraging, and she made her teammates play better. This season Heritage seemed to have some talent, but had trouble putting it all together. Their defense was lax on the medium-speed hits and serves, but the flashed some real digging ability on the smashes and especially against Faith's plunging jump serves. They had a couple of crushing hits, but put a lot of balls into the net and past the end line.

There wasn't much drama in any of tonight's games, so I won't go into a blow-by-blow description of each game. At 1-1 in game one, Taylor dropped three aces in a row, and the game was for all intents and purposes over. Heritage hung around to 8-5, but quickly it was 19-8. The Patriots played with varying levels of intensity, often slipping into a less-than-focused effort, but they really didn't need that intensity to put away the Defenders. CCS played even with Heritage until an Ally spike closed out the 25-14 game one win. Game two was a little closer but never in doubt. Heritage's defense got better but their offense seemed to slip. We made a few of our own errors and Heritage hung around, trailing only 21-15 at one point. Holly, Faith and Ally each got kills in the home stretch and soon game two was in the books, 25-16. All the starch was out of Heritage by this point, and game three was a blowout. Calumet had a lot of kills and aces to open this game, each from several different players. Even with a substitutions, following a Jenna ace the Patriots led 16-4. The girls relaxed just a bit but all that did was keep the lead from growing as fast as it had. The Heritage errors began piling up, and the game finished on three straight Heritage mishits. Final score: 25-9.

On to what could be the girls' last real challenge until NACA. Crossroads, Goshen and perhaps Hebron lurk somewhere down the road, but we should still be favored in any of those matchups. Maybe there will be a new team at Quentin Road. We'll have to see. In the meantime, both Terre Haute South and North, and Crown Point await us this Saturday, and all three will be tough.