Perspective

So, CCS lost to Munster. The fact that the team, families and fans were so disappointed about the outcome says a lot about the program and this team specifically. Five years ago, if you said that Calumet would be 18-2 against IHSAA and IHSA teams, with victories over some of the best teams in the region, would that have been reason for regret? Absolutely not. It would have been occassion for wild celebration. Now we expect to beat everybody. And that's a good thing. 
Sometimes extremely high expectations are difficult to live up to. Sometimes teams have an off night, don't play their absolute best. It happens to everyone. Considering that the girls started off tight, and never really got into their game, the fact they lost in four, every game close, tells you that this is a pretty good team. A really good team. A team good enough to get to #2 in the region, with a cast that could have been made that they should have been number one. If the rankings remain as they are, this team will have beaten four of the top twelve teams in the region - Andrean, Kankakee Valley, Crown Point and Griffith. They beat the #3 team in 2A in the state, Eastern Greene. It wasn't that long ago that we were excited about beating Westville.

It looked like it was going to be a long night, the way game one started. A shanked pass, a mishit, and a setting error gave Munster the early 3-0 lead. A serving error by Munster broke up the streak, but Munster retained the lead until two Munster errors followed by two Faith kills made it 8-7, CCS. Munster then went on a 7-1 run, with kills, blocks and a lot of Patriot errors. From there, Taylor, Faith and Lauren did their best to keep us in it with kills, but the errors kept piling up and soon it was 23-15, Munster. Calumet made one last surge - Holly got a kill and two blocks in the streak - which ended  on a net violation. Faith put down one more ball before the next Calumet spike attempt went out to make the final score 25-22.  Game two started with kills from both teams, but at 5-5 Munster ran off five straight, all but one of which came from an error from our side. We then ran off four, but they ran off five more and CCS trailed by six. CCS still trailed by five when they scored three but the girls never got closer than two the rest of the way and lost by the same score, 25-22.

There were somewhat fewer errors in game three, but there still were too many. Faith started dinking and finding the holes, but we either trailed or the game was tied until Ally put one down when the ball popped up after she blocked it.  Katie followed with an ace and tbe Patriots led 15-13. The girls continued their strong play, stretching the lead to 23-16 at one point. Munster made a little run but a dink by Faith finished it with CCS winning 25-21. Game four didn't follow the script of the first three. CCS, after falling behind 4-2, went on an 8-2 run to go up 10-6. Faith, Ally and Taylor made the kills and Holly added a nice block. But things went south quickly from there. Munster made a couple of nice kills and a block which seemed to unnerve our girls. We started making a lot of errors. Munster did as well for a while, so the score remained close until at 15-14 CCS, Munster stopped making errors and we did not. Except for consecutive Taylor kills to make it 21-18, it was all Munster from there. A block and a kill closed out the game and match, 25-19.

The night before the girls defeated Illinois Lutheran, but the first game had an inexplicable breakdown by the girls which resulted in a loss in that game, 26-24, and this was after CCS had a 17-7 lead at one point. The Patriots got down to business in games two and three, winning easily 25-12 in each, but that first game showed that we have to be sharp in all our games, which was of course very evident in last night's match. I wasn't able to attend the games on Tuesday, which the girls won each in two straight, but the report is that they didn't play their best there either, but just good enough to win.

Regionals begin on Monday, with a game against Heritage at Heritage at 6:00. If the girls play well, it should mean back-to-back state championships. The only teams that can push us are Goshen, Arthur, and possibly Heritage. The goofy way the tournament is set up means that if we beat Heritage, we play on Tuesday against a significantly weaker team, from the area, at Granger. Then we travel to Indianapolis eleven days later to play another team from the north in the semifinals. I think the tournament should be renamed the ICST - the Illogical Christian State Tournament. Thursday we play both Goshen and Heritage in a tri-match at Heritage, and Friday is a last-minute addition to the schedule as we play Illinois Lutheran again.