Faithless

That was too easy. The title line, that is.

But we did find out how good this team is without her.

Pretty good.

In fact, very good. The Patriots rolled to their second consecutive ICST championship on Saturday, defeating the Goshen Blue Blazers 25-16, 25-21, 25-15 in the semifinals and in a display of dominance, crushing the Arthur Okaw Christian Riders in the championship, 25-16, 25-7, 25-14, all without their star player, Faith. Actually, the state championship was accomplished in the defeat of Goshen, as Arthur is an Illinois team. So I guess the girls are now either the champions of the IICST or you might call them bi-state champions.

As all of you know by know, Faith badly sprained her ankle at Thursday's practice. It was soon determined that she would definitely be out for the state tournament (Her status for NACA is uncertain at this time). Coach's answer to this was to move Ally into Faith's position, change to a 5-1 with Katie setting, and playing Bekah and Mandi in Ally's slot. The girls were a little out-of-sorts to begin the match, but considering that they had not played this formation all year, they played pretty well. Goshen didn't challenge very much either, so the girls had a chance to get comfortable. It was 6-5 CCS when the girls began a little streak. Points were achieved from blocks, hits, dinks, and the a Holly ace made it 13-6. A Goshen dink kill was only a momentary interruption, as the girls ran off another four. A little Goshen run made it 20-13. Mandi stopped that run with a block, then Taylor dominated the end of the game with two kills and a block to account for three of the last four points.

The Patriots seemed to have more trouble adjusting in the second game than the first. They fell behind 9-6, mostly because of their own errors, defensive and hitting. Holly got things going the right way with a kill. That started a run of five points to give CCS the lead. Goshen ran off three at 13-13 to give them the lead, but Calumet answered that with four. Goshen scored on a spike to tie it again, but Ally and Holly got kills, and CCS never relinquished the lead. Another Holly kill closed out game two.

In game three, the teams split the first four points. Ally put the Patriots into the lead with a kill, then Taylor got one from the back row. A little aside - the back row hitting was beautiful all day. A bit later a Katie ace was followed by back-to-back kills from Ally and the game was for all intents and purposes, over. Goshen got no closer than three as they began to make errors and our girls continued their stellar play. The lead got pushed out to 22-9 on a Kassie ace before, yes, a LGFS. Of the last six points scored by Goshen, four were from unforced errors by CCS. The game and match ended somewhat anticlimactically, on a Goshen hitting error.

Arthur had coasted past Horizon in the first semifinal. (I could put together a whole post on why Horizon has a trophy case full of fourth-place volleyball trophies, but I will refrain. I will try to be positive ;-). )  Arthur Okaw from Arthur, Illinois. We still are not sure what they were doing at the Indiana Christian School Tournament. I have a thought or two, but I'm keeping that to myself. (See parenthetical statement above.) However, we were thankful that we had what we thought would be a tough opponent in the final. We had faced Arthur in the semifinals of our tournament and in a one-game pool play match at Quentin Road. Both times it looked they were intimidated, and they didn't score more than fourteen in any game. But with Faith out, CCS would be playing short-handed and the intimidation factor would lessened, if not gone altogether.

We got the early lead at 5-3, but Arthur ran off four straight points. The good thing about that was three of the points were off unforced errors. That 7-5 lead turned out to be the highlight of Arthur's afternoon. We matched the four points, gave up one on a missed serve, then scored three more. Arthur scored two more to get within two, but that was as close as they would get. Except for the beginning of the next two games, that was as close as they would get all afternoon. A hitting error was followed by an ace by Mandi and a dink kill by Lauren. Shortly thereafter, an Arthur kill brought them to within three. That hope was quickly squashed by two Ally kills, a block by Holly and Ally and a kill by Holly. Taylor finished off that run with a back-row kill. Arthur scored three of the next four, but a Holly kill on an over pass was followed by an Arthur hitting error and Taylor finished with a kill.

Game two didn't look much different than game one. At least for a while. CCS had the same lead of 5-3, but this time they moved the lead out to 10-5. We hit one into the net on a kill attempt but that was the last point Arthur would score for a while. Holly began a serving streak in which her serving arm got so tired that Coach had to replace her. Just kidding. Arthur could not get any hits in to start with, then it was kills by Taylor, Lauren and Bekah, followed by blocks: first a solo by Lauren, then a double from Lauren and Holly, then a dink/block by Lauren. When the dust settled, the Patriots had run off fourteen in a row. Arthur dinked one down to delay the inevitable, but they followed that with a serving error to end it.

It seemed at this point that the outcome of the third game was a foregone conclusion. The play confirmed this. No long streaks, but Calumet established the early lead and never gave it up. A block by Ally and Lauren made it 4-1. An Ally kill made it 7-2. A back-row kill by Ally and it was 15-6. The biggest lead was twelve at 20-8 and 21-9. Arthur put together a little stretch of good play, getting as close as nine, but they ended with a mishit and the Patriots reigned again.

Two straight state titles. Three consecutive Calumet Invitational championships. Three straight Quentin Road titles. Back-to-back Kankakee Valley Tourney victories. Terre Haute tourney victors.
Reigning Division 1 NACA champions (I love writing that). A whisker away from adding a Lafayette Central Catholic tournament and another state title to all of that. The accomplishments of this senior class is astounding. Now they have the opportunity to add to all that with another NACA championship. And to get this last one without their captain and best player speaks volumes about their ability and character.

Congratulations, girls.