Youthful FCA ties for first place at Aurora Christian VB Invitational

Age is just a number.
 
Faith Christian Academy didn't let being the youngest team in the field stop the Falcons from claiming a share of first place at the Aurora Christian Volleyball Invitational Saturday. Faith defeated Crossroads Christian 25-9, 25-20, then bounced back from a loss to Calvary Christian to beat Aurora Christian 25-14, 25-16 in the four-team round-robin tournament. FCA, Calvary and Aurora Christian each finished with a 2-1 record. Calvary won the tiebreaker by virtue of allowing the fewest total tournament points of the three first-place squads, but that couldn't damper Faith's enthusiastic performance. Congratulations, Falcons!
 
Faith is now 8-2 overall and 5-2 in varsity matches this season heading into a doubleheader with Wredling on Monday at FCA's friendly confines.

FCA opened the tournament with a decisive victory over Crossroads. Faith took control in the first set when Rose McCormick broke open a 5-5 tie with nine straight service points for a 14-5 lead on Rose's 13th birthday. FCA continued expanding its lead the rest of the set behind strong serving and consistent passing to setter.
 
The Falcons led for most of set two before clinching the match by scoring the set's last three points. Rose and Gigi Crescenzo earned the best attitude and hustle awards.
 
Faith's second match came against Calvary Christian, which defeated the Falcons earlier this month in Naperville. Calvary bounced back from a loss to Aurora Christian to knock off FCA in two sets. Mackenzie VanDerSnick earned the hustle award in the match.

The young Falcons weren't used to Calvary's mix of power jump spikes, tips and serves, but the experience helped prepare the team for a similar style opponent in Aurora Christian. FCA led the entire match with the host Eagles. Faith did a much better job of handling deep servers and jump servers in serve receive, hustled to cover tips, worked very well together to keep the ball off the floor and pass to setter and deep to ACS's back row, dominated the net with tips, blocks and spikes and delivered terrific serving consistency while ACS gave away numerous points with errant serves. Liz Watson won the hustle award, and Corrin and Mack earned the best attitude award.

Congratulations to Gigi, Corrin, Jessica Chiaro, Mackenzie, Rose, Liz, Paige Petty, Grace Hansen, Jessica Kohlmeyer, Jessica Smith and Nicki Smith for their contributions to the team's finish!

Special thanks goes to the many parents, siblings, grandparents and friends who cheered on the Falcons at ACS, including two of our team captains, Anneliese Lockner and Lauren Caprini.