New configuration

There was a new lineup in tonight's varsity game against Grace Baptist Academy, with Jessi Stas and Faith Rohn switching place, with Jessi taking over Faith's setting responsibilities. Grace is having a down year, so this was a good game to implement a new strategy. The girls took a little time to get used to their new positions and playing next to different players, but the Patriots took the first game, 25-18. The second game started out the same way, but some unreturnable serves by Faith separated the Patriots from the Crusaders, and Cal/Cal pulled away for a 25-14 victory. In the third game, the players seemed to be settling into their new positions and they played well. The final of that game was also 25-14.

The girls played without Jessie Clark tonight, who was released from the hospital today. She will not be playing Friday, but she should be back next week.

The junior high team lost their game in three, and the JVa team beat the Crusaders, 25-17, 25-15.

The varsity's record now stands at 21-6-3; JV is 11-1-1; and junior high is 8-3-3.

Next game is Friday at Ridgewood. Check the bottom of the page for times and directions.

Records and such

I neglected to include the records of the teams in my last post so here goes:

Varsity is now 20-6-3 overall. They are 13-6 in best of three or best of five matches and still 8-2 in non-tournament matches.

JVa is 10-1-1 overall, 8-1 in non-pool play and 7-0 in non-tournament competition.

JHa is 8-2-3, 7-2 in non-tournament play.

And just for fun, overall the record is 38-9-7, 28-9, and 22-4. (Yes, the overall record in tournament pool play is 10-0-7.)

Tonight we host Grace Baptist Academy of Kankakee. The junior high game begins t 4:30. The varsity will be without Jessie Clark, who is supposed to be coming home from the hospital today. Keep her in your prayers.

Another fourth

The Calumet Region Volleyball Invitational finished up tonight with Faith Christian School of Lafayette just nipping Heritage Christian High School of Dyer, Indiana, 25-14, 22-25, 16-14 in a very exciting and well-played final. Faith had not dropped even a game until the final, while Heritage reached the final after finishing second in its pool.

Now, to our Patriots. We already knew last night that we would finish first in our pool, but as I mentioned in the last post, the girls did not play their best on Friday and struggled to beat teams that they probably should have handled easily. So we weren't sure what was going to happen today. We were, however, quite familiar with our first opponent - Kankakee Trinity Academy, the fourth seed in the yellow pool and victor against Grace Baptist in their first game (Cal/Cal earned a bye in the first round). This was our fourth match against them this year. We had beat them the first three times, but it seemed that Trinity was tougher each time. That trend ended today. Calumet/Calvary jumped out to a 16-0 lead behind strong serving by Faith. The final of the first game was 21-5. The second was a little more competitive, but Cal/Cal still won, 21-12. On to the quarterfinal round, where Ridgewood awaited us. Ridgewood had beaten Calvary Academy and Quentin Road to get there. This round was where Cal/Cal fell last year. Again, a different story. The Patriots stormed to a 21-7 opening game victory, then hung on in the second game for a 21-17 win. This earned the Patriots a spot in the semifinals. Heritage Christian, who gave the Patriots its first loss was the opponent. Heritage won the first game rather easily, 21-14. Then things got interesting. Heritage was leading Cal/Cal 19-16 when the scorer took points off of both teams. The ref stopped the game, and after consulting the official scorebook, ordered the scoreboard to read 20-15. The Patriots ran off the next three points, but lost the next, resulting in a 21-18 game and match loss. Cal/Cal now had to play the third place game. Christian Liberty Academy was the opponent there, as they had lost in the other semifinal to Faith Christian. Our girls seemed tired and a little distracted and lost two games straight, 25-17, 25-15.

Congrats to Jessi Clark, all-tourney second team and Faith Rohn, all-tournament first team.

First day of tournament

Yes, yes, I know I didn't blog about the games at Portage and Westville. We have been very busy preparing for this weekends big tournament. I think everyone won except for the varsity, who lost by the slimmest of margins, 15-13 in the fifth game.

But this weekend is all about the tournament. Since it's so late, I won't say much about the other teams, but I will fill that in later. Calumet (I'm calling us Calumet because that's the tournament name) finished first in the blue pool with a 9-1 record. LaSalle Peru may finish with the same record (their final two games are tomorrow morning), and we did split with them, but Calumet scored more points head-to-head with them than they did.

Calumet began their tournament against the aforementioned LaSalle-Peru team and looked quite flat, as the often do in their opening game. They did end up losing that game, 21-16. However, they got it together for the second and won 21-12. It turned out that LaSalle Peru was truly the best team (perhaps besides the Patriots) in our pool. So we should have had an easy time of it after that opening match, right? Not. The Patriots struggled against inferior team, and while they won all of their games, they did not look good. For example, the Patriots won both games against Lakeland by the minimum, two point. Anyway, they did finish 9-1 in the pool, so they won't be playing until tomorrow at noon.

One item of interest: Faith Christian of Lafayette is the only undefeated team in pool play.

See you tomorrow.

Another full evening

On Friday, various and sundry teams from various and sundry organizations came to Lake Hills to play a lot of volleyball. I'm not sure if I have all the match-ups correct but I will give it a try.

Apparently the first game was our JVb team taking on the JV team of the Lady Crusaders, which I believe is a home school team from Plymouth, Indiana. I wasn't there, but I can report that the scores were 25-24, 25-18, Calumet/Calvary. Following this game was a varsity matchup between the same two organizations.

In the first game of the varsity match, the home team jumped to an early lead of 14-6 behind the serving of Faith Rohn. After an exchange of points, the Lady Crusaders started getting it together and pulled to within 22-17. Cal/Cal got the last three points, however, and won 25-17. The second game started out opposite of the first. The Lady Crusaders jumped out to an early lead (5-1). The Patriots tied it up at 6, but the Lady Crusaders behind some excellent defense pulled out to another four-point lead at 16-12. But from that point on, it was all Patriots, as they outscored LC 13-2 for a 25-18 lead. This seemed to demoralize the LCs a little, and the Patriots had little trouble winning the third, 25-12.

I am sorry to report that I don't have the scores for the third match of the night, but I do know that the JVa team beat the Granger varsity team in two games.

The final match of the night was between the JHa team against the Granger JV team, which really wasn't the JV team because most of the players were the same as played against the JVa team. Calvary lost this one in three, 23-25, 25-12, and 9-15. This one will be tough to include in their record, because it was against virtually a varsity team. However, if you do count it, the JHa record is now 7-2-3, 6-2 in non-tournament games. The JVa team record is 9-1-1, 7-1 in non-pool play and 6-0 in non-tournament games. The varsity's record stands at 14-3-2, 11-3 in non-pool play, and 8-1 in non-tournament games.

Games next Tuesday are at Portage Christian (JH and JVb) and at Westville (JVa and varsity). Portage games begin at 4:00 and 5:30 at Westville. See you there.

Congrats

Congratulations to Jessi Stas for making the all-tournament team at the recent Christian Liberty Academy Volleyball Invitational.

Congratulations to Faith Rohn for being named MVP at the same tournament. This is quite an honor, as this award usually goes to a member of the top one or two teams in a tournament (Calumet/Calvary finished fourth), and rarely to a freshman. So congrats again to Faith. (And this despite that hitting error that interrupted Rachel's machine-like serving. Hmmm....)

In case anyone cares, Christian Life won the tournament. I don't know who finished second and third between Faith/Illinois and CLA.

Back to the regular season

The Patriots took on both Kankakee Trinity Academy (yes, again) and Covenant Christian High tonight at the home court at Lake Hills. It wasn't a tournament, but the girls can't quite get away from playing multiple games in a day. The opening match was the JVb team against the JV team of KTA, but I wasn't there and didn't get the score.

Cal/Cal had already played KTA twice this season, once in the opening quad at Grace Baptist and once in the CLA tournament last weekend. The first game ended with our girls taking two straight, but in the tournament the match went three games before the Patriots prevailed. Tonight's match consisted of three closely played games, all victories for the home team. The scores were 25-21, 25-22, and 28-26. KTA will be at our tournament, so we may meet them yet again.

The JVa team then took on the JV team of Covenant Christian High. The girls played even with CCHS for a while, but then the visitors pulled away to a 22-13 lead, a nearly insurmountable deficit in this age of rally scoring. However, the Patriots stormed back and eked out a 25-24 win. They had a much easier time in the second, winning 25-14.

The varsity returned for the match against Covenant's varsity team. Cal/Cal opened the season against Covenant at the Grace Baptist quad, winning in three (best of three). In the first game tonight, our girls jumped out early to a big lead (17-6), gave up a few points, but prevailed, 25-15. The second game was a completely different story. There were many defensive lapses, and they lost, 25-18. The third and fourth games were yet another story. The third game was won 25-15 and the fourth, 25-12.

The report from the junior high games against Stone Academy was that both teams ("a" and "b") were victorious.

The junior high "a" team sports a 7-1-3 record, 6-1 in non-tournament matches. The JVa team is now 8-1-1, 6-1 in non-pool play, and 5-0 in non-tournament play. The varsity's record now stands at 13-3-2, 10-3 in non-pool matches, and 7-1 in non-tournament play.

Next games are this Friday against Granger and Lady Crusaders at Lake Hills. Times are at the bottom of the page.

Patriots take fourth, part II

Saturday came very quickly, as the girls had to leave the hotel by 7:15 to get to CLA in time for their 8:00 game. Since the girls had tied for first in their pool with both Faith and Christian Liberty, all with 8-2 records, they had to go to the tiebreakers. The ten-point loss in the second game came back to haunt them, as the tiebreaker went to head-to-head points. Because of that game, the girls finished in third. First and second place teams didn't have to be there until at least 10:30. The first game of the day was against the sixth place team from the other pool, Westlake. After a first-game victory by the score of 21-5, Coach Carr substituted freely in the second. Cal/Cal won that one by 21-12. The next game was against Kankakee Trinity, a team the Patriots had beaten in the opening quad. Trinity finished second in the other pool and were playing well. The first game was full of Patriot errors and Trinity squeezed out a 21-19 win. Our girls played the second game as if they were angry about the first game loss, opening up a 16-5 lead. Again, the girls began to make a lot of mistakes and let Trinity back into it. Finally, the girls finished them off, 21-16. The third and deciding game did not match the first two. Rachel Eizenga started off serving. And she kept serving. And serving. Before you knew it, it was 14-0. Then, there was a hitting error on Cal/Cal by an unnamed player (cough Faith cough). The next point was won by the Patriots and the final was 15-1.

After lunch, the next game was against Christian Life, the team that won the tiebreakers and finished first in the pool. This time the girls lost in two straight, but the games were competitive. The final scores were 21-15, 21-17. This sent the girls to the losers bracket. Calvary/Calumet had to play Willow to get in to the third place game. This team wasn't quite in our class, and Cal/Cal won easily in two games, 21-9, 21-9. In the meantime, CLA, the host team, had lost to Faith and then had beaten Trinity in their first loser bracket game to set up the game to guarantee a third place finish.

CLA came playing at a very high level, with the advantage of playing on their home court and with the support of their home crowd. CLA had a player that did not play when Cal/Cal had beaten them earlier in the year, and she turned out to be one of their top two players. Our girls looked completely spent, and CLA won easily, 21-11, 21-13. We didn't stick around to find out who took first, second and third.

Overall, I would say the girls played very well, but not as consistent as they could be. They didn't seem to quite be as well conditioned as CLA, as CLA had played the same schedule but didn't appear to be as tired as our girls were. But, I think the top four teams were pretty even.

Thank to Shirley, Joanne and Kristi for the all the good food we had over the weekend. Parents, in my opinion, the money was well-spent. The food was delicious and much better for the girls than concession food.

Next games: Tuesday at Lake Hills. The varsity play Trinity and Covenant, at 4:30 and 6:30. Check the calendar at the bottom of the page for the JV and JH upcoming games. I do hope to give a better update for those teams in the near future.

Patriots take fourth

It's been a long couple of days of volleyball. A couple of moderately successful days, as the Calvary Christian/Calumet Baptist Patriots took fourth place in the inaugural Christian Liberty Academy Varsity Invitational Volleyball Tournament, or the CLAVIVT, as we will call it.

The Patriots kicked off their participation in the tournament Friday with a pool play match against Rockford Christian Life. We didn't know anything about them, and after the first eleven points, we thought they might be a pushover. It was 10-1, Patriots. But then the Eagles got warmed up and stormed back. The Patriots managed to hang on for a 21-19 win. The Eagles maintained the momentum gained in the latter half of the first game and beat our girls rather easily, 21-11. After a short rest, the girls took on Elgin Academy. Elgin showed up with only five players, so Christian Liberty shared two of their JV players with them. This didn't seem to help much. The Patriots won in a near whitewash, 21-1. The second game saw several substitutions, and the girls took the second, 21-9. The third pool set was against a slightly better opponent, Mooseheart High. The girls played well and won 21-7, 21-11. Next up was Faith Christian from Dixon, IL. This team looked great last year losing in the finals of the Quentin Road tournament. They had many of the same girls back and we weren't sure what would happen. What happened was great play, controversy, inadvertant buzzers, and one very upset coach. The first game was very close, but the girls fell behind 19-15. But, not really. The scorer found that Faith had served out of rotation for three points. After a long delay where both coaches, the ref, and the scorer tried to figure out how this should be resolved, the ref finally decided that Faith should lose the three points and Cal/Cal should be awarded the serve. Let's just say that the Faith coach strenuously disagreed with that ruling. Anyway, that's what was decided, and the Patriots used it to eke out a 22-20 victory. The second game was also closely competed. Our girls had made a run and trailed by one point. Faith called a timeout. Following the timeout, Faith R. (our Faith, not the opponent), dinked the ball. As it crossed the net and began to fall to an unguarded part of the opponent's court, the score table buzzer went off because the scorer forgot to turn off the clock for the timeout. The ref called a replay and the girls went on to lose the point. Faith went on to win that game, 21-19. There was one more pool play match against a team that Cal/Cal should be able to easily handle, but there seemed to be a letdown after the big game after the draining Faith game. The final of the first game was 21-16, Cal/Cal. The girls got it together for the second and won 21-6.

I will recap Saturday's festivities later.

All good things must come to an end

And they did tonight in Dyer? St. John? Crown Point? Cedar Lake? some town in Indiana against the Heritage Christian High Defenders. The winning streak looked safe early as Heritage's defense was weak and the Patriots jumped out to a 7-3 lead. But then the Defenders quickly tightened up their passing and evened the score at 9-9. Heritage crept out to a 15-12 lead, then poured it on for a 25-16 first game victory. The second game was close from the beginning throughout the whole game, but Heritage got the victory, 25-21 in a very exciting game. The third game started with Calumet/Calvary looking like they were ready to pack it in as they fell behind 15-5. They then began to rally behind some solid serving and overall better play and pulled to within three at 20-17. They couldn't sustain the momentum, however and fell 25-20.

Cal/Cal's weaknesses in coverage and passing were exposed by the solid front row play of the Heritage defenders. The Patriors couldn't get a lot of offense going because the poor passing led to scrambling setters which precluded hitting opportunities. Coverage shortcomings were exploited by deft dinking by the tall girls of Heritage.

Cal/Cal will have the chance to show that they corrected their problems this weekend as they participate in an tournament Friday and Saturday in Arlington Heights at Christian Liberty Academy. Their first game is at 1:00PM against Rockford Christian Life.

EDIT: I realized that I forgot to put in the JV and JH information. I will do that this evening. Until then I can tell you that both JH teams lost and the JV won.

Another slow start

The Patriots traveled north on Friday, up to Lake Zurich, Illinois, to take on the Quentin Road Eagles at their home court. The Patriots were not sharp in the first game. Poor coverage, a recurring problem this year, was a big culprit. The girls also had a lot of unforced errors. Good serving and uneven play by Quentin Road enabled the girls to hold a lead of 21-18. Calumet/Calvary still led 23-21 when Quentin Road ran off four straight points for a first game win by the score of 25-23. The second game was a better game for the Patriots. The serving remained strong and there were fewer unforced errors. Coverage remained a problem, but the girls prevailed, 25-17, with the final point being scored by a spike by Kara. The third game was over early, with Quentin Road making many unforced errors and the Patriots hustling and playing somewhat better. The final score of that game was 25-14. Calumet/Calvary's record now stands at 5-0.

In earlier games, the JVb team lost to Quentin Road's junior high team, 26-24, 25-20. The JVa team prevailed against Quentin Road's JV team, 25-21, 25-18. Significant in this match was Holly's two big hits to finish the first game and another big one to finish the second. The JVa's record is 6-1-1 (4-1 in non-pool play games).

Next game is at Heritage Christian at Calumet and 231 (whatever town that is) on Tuesday, September 9. The junior high "b" team starts things off at 3:30. Junior high "a", JV, and varsity follow.

First home win

The Calumet/Calvary Patriots picked up their first home win of the season, coincidently in their first home game. They beat the Christian Liberty Academy Chargers of Arlington Heights, 25-14, 25-12, and 25-22. I apologize about not having programs; we'll have them for next home game.

It was Christian Liberty's first game of the season, and that was apparent early on. The Patriots had a little trouble generating much offence, but their defense was solid so they could be patient while waiting for the Chargers to make the errors. By the third game, Christian Liberty started playing better and actually held the lead for a good part of the game, but the Patriots slowly pulled ahead and finished the match with three straight wins.

Earlier in the evening, the junior high team won a thriller in three games, and the JV easily handled Christian Liberty's JV team, 25-15, 25-12.

Cal/Cal's next games are against Quentin Road on Friday. JVb starts the festivities at 4:30, with JVa and varsity following.