An undefeated week

The teams played their last regular season games this week, and both came up with victories. The girls played Calumet Christian on Thursday, and came away with a solid 38-17 victory, while the somewhat depleted boys team traveled out to Channahon on Friday and defeated Families of Faith Christian Academy, 40-29.

The girls had played Calumet early in the season and had easily defeated the first-year team, 30-12. We expected them to be better for this game, as it was Calumet's second game the first time we played, and from what we heard. If you recall my post from the first game, there's a lot of connections between the two teams, so we knew something of what was going on with them. On the other hand, they also knew about us, that we were on a nice streak. So there were few secrets between us.

The game was played at the Jean Shepherd Center in Hammond. It's a big fieldhouse, so there was a lot going on there when we arrived. It seems a volleyball club team was having practice on the near courts, so we walked down to the end, where the Calumet boys were playing the Portage Christian team. That game was a nail-biter, with Calumet winning by a slim margin. The Portage parents were quite, umm, intense, as they were when our girls played them. Hmmm. Anyway, our game. The girls came out pretty flat defensively, although the shooting was pretty good. Five girls scored, and the team shot 50% for the quarter. On the other end of the court, the girls were giving up a lot of offensive rebounds. Thankfully, Calumet didn't shoot real well, and the Patriots did get a few steals. HSRC was up 7-6 but scored the last five points of the quarter to go up 12-6. The girls didn't not show much life to begin the second quarter. However, with the score 14-10, they again went on  little five-point streak. The girls extended their zone defense to pick up the ball handler at half-court, and this seemed to fluster Calumet. The half ended with the Patriots leading 19-10.

That defense continued into the third quarter. Calumet was having a hard time getting off shots, and the ones they did were not going in. Meanwhile, the girls' offense was picking up. Rachel was working hard to get shots inside, and it paid off with nine points. Kara got a couple of baskets and Alyssa hit an outside shot. HSRC outscored Calumet 15-2 in the quarter to effectively put the game out of reach. Rachel and Alyssa each got a bucket to open the fourth. The girls maintained that lead until about midway through the quarter, when the bench was emptied. The junior high girls played pretty good defense, but their offense isn't nearly as far along. Calumet scored only five after that, but our bench had trouble hanging onto the ball, and didn't score any.

Rachel led in scoring with thirteen; Kara had nine, Alyssa eight, Becca and Lee had three and Carolyn had two. Rachel led in rebounding with six (it was not a good rebounding night). Alyssa had five assists and Kara added four. Kara had five steals, Becca four, and Alyssa had three. Now we have a long stretch without any games until the state tournament the first weekend of March.

We had a little information about Families of Faith. From looking at a couple scores of games they had with common opponents, we felt we had a good chance against them. The start of the the game did nothing to refute that idea. Our guys jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, as the Patriots hit three of their first four shots, one being a three by Luke D. FOFCA cranked up their defense at this point, and the shots were more contested. FOFCA got a couple of baskets and a free throw, matched only by a HSRC free throw. Yes, free throws. A common occurrence in this game. Halfway through the first quarter, I commented that there might not be anyone left to finish the game, as frequently as the fouls were called. It was quite a contrast to most of the games we've played this year, especially the girls, where rugby scrums were going on and nothing was called. This game was a little too far toward the other end of the spectrum. FOFCA ended up with seven FT attempts in the quarter but only made one. HSRC had two foul shots and made one (Luke L).  Dustin finished the scoring in the quarter with bucket that made it 10-5. Our shooting went south in the second quarter, with the guys only making one out of ten. Dustin got the one early in the quarter to put the Patriots up by seven, but the guys only got one more in the quarter, a FT by Luke D. They had seven attempts from the line, but the shooting from there was as bad as the shooting from the floor. The defense was decent, however, as the Patriots limited FOFCA to only five shots. Two were successful, so FOFCA outscored the Patriots 4-3 in the quarter to make it a four-point game at half, 13-9.

The second half started out with some defensive breakdowns by HSRC; however, the guys started figuring out how to break down the defense of FOFCA. Dustin scored on drives and short jumpers and Justin started figuring out where the soft spots were near the basket. FOFCA outscored HSRC at about the midpoint of the quarter, 7-6, when the guys picked up the defense. FOFCA did not score the remainder of the quarter, while the Patriots scored the last eight to go up by eleven going into the fourth. Justin worked for three straight baskets underneath to open the fourth, while FOFCA was held to two during that stretch to give HSRC a fifteen-point lead. The teams exchanged some baskets and freethrows during the middle part of the quarter, with FOFCA scoring five and HSRC three on a free throw by Luke D and a basket by Dustin. Luke L had fouled out by this time, and several players on both teams were close. We thought maybe the refs (ref singular; the other ref called very little) would back off in the second half. This was not the case. FOFCA then put on little run, pulling to within seven, as the Patriots relaxed a bit on defense. The Patriots woke up a little at that point, and Dustin knocked down four straight free throws to complete the scoring. Final foul tallies: twenty on FOFCA, seventeen on HSRC (in a not particularly physical game). Three players fouled out and two more had four at game's end.

Dustin set a new boys' scoring high and a high for both programs (boys and girls) for the season, with twenty in the game. This matches the high-point total all-time for the program, as Kara had twenty in a game last year. He also pulled down thirteen rebounds. Justin scored twelve, all in the second half, and had twelve boards. Luke D scored five, Jimi had two and Luke L one to go with his six rebounds. Jimi and Justin each had two steals.

No more regular season games for the guys. The Lafayette tournament is next weekend, with our first game against Wabash at 5:30 CST. Note the time: Lafayette is in the Eastern time zone, so the times listed on the information from the tournament hosts are EST. The first game on Saturday will be either 8:45 or 9:00, depending on the outcome of the Friday game.