Hoping for History
November 1, 2007
By: Kristen Bartheld <kbartheld@hilite.org>
This game has been a dream for Sarah Harbison, right- side hitter and senior, even before her days as a member of the high school volleyball team.
“Ever since eighth grade (seniors) Valerie (Akerhielm), (Sarah) Havel, Kalyse (Reimbold) and I had a vision; we wanted to win State. On last Saturday night our dream got closer, it’s so surreal. We are so close to being the best in the State,” she said.
The Hounds are in Semistate for the first time since 1994. On Saturday the team defeated Number-2 Avon: 20-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-23, to become the Regional champion. Elizabeth Lucich, middle hitter and junior, said, “I’m so excited. It feels surreal. I feel like I never would have expected to get this far, but we worked really hard and we deserve it.”
However, according to Harbison, the women on the team are not satisfied with the Regional win. They want more. “(We) always get out of Sectional; however, never out of Regional before now. I love doing what we did. You can doubt a team all you want, but all that matters is that we believe and our coaches believe,” she said.
Second-year Head Coach Bill Bastin was aware of the theory that many people did not believe that the Hounds could get past their tough Regional. “Last year when I came here and won Sectional, everyone was just like, ‘Oh, Carmel wins another Sectional and they’re finished now.’ That was something I took to heart and something I made the kids very aware of,” he said.
The Hounds will have a another chance to prove themselves tomorrow morning when they play Number-4 Elkhart Memorial after the 9 a.m. game of Floyd Central versus New Castle.
The ranking of their opponent does not intimidate Harbison. “We were unranked and beat Number-2 Avon,” she said. “I don’t think you can go by rankings at all. A lot of the top teams are out. It’s up for grabs.”
Bastin also said that rankings do not matter anymore. “It is anyone’s game. It all boils down to desire and heart,” he said.
According to Harbison, the strong team camaraderie will be a key asset tomorrow. “Out of every team I have been on, the team now is the true definition of the word. You can always depend on the person next to you,” she said. “We are such a team; there is not one person with a negative attitude.”
Tomorrow she will get a chance to achieve her dream of winning State. “We have been saying all year this is the year to do it,” Harbison said. “We can go down in CHS history as the first volleyball team to win (State). It would be amazing.”
Football team looks to defend title
November 1, 2007
By: Andrew Browning <abrowning@hilite.org>
Tonight the football team looks to capture its second consecutive Sectional title, which would be its fourth in the last five years. A Sectional championship would cap off a 7-2 regular season and strong postseason before the team heads off to the Regional.
After finishing the regular season with a 7-2 record, with each loss coming by only a point to Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference rivals Center Grove and Ben Davis, running back Aaron King said he was pleased with how the team performed during the regular season.
“The team has performed great in my opinion,” King said. “We’re ready for the playoffs. This is the time of the season that really matters. Everything we’ve been doing up to this point is to get us ready to make our run.”
King said that each playoff game, no matter the competition, reinforces the notion that one team is playing for its last time.
“It’s intense the whole way,” King said. “It’s a constant reminder that if you lose you go home and you’re finished.”
Despite the different atmosphere the playoffs bring, Head Coach Mo Moriarity said that nothing has changed in practice and preparation each week.
“The thing we stress with our kids is we prepare for the first game of the season the same as the last game of the season,” Moriarity said. “The only thing that changes when the tournament gets here is the situation; when you lose you’re done.”
Moriarity said the key to postseason success for the Hounds is to continue improving throughout the tournament.
“I feel our football team has improved but must continue to improve,” Moriarity said. “That will be the key to the success we have from here on out.”
King said that the thing the Hounds have to avoid at this point in the season is getting complacent.
“We’ve just got to stay persistent and stay hungry,” King said. “It shouldn’t be a problem staying motivated and working hard since it’s one game and you’re out. We’re ready and we want to win.”
One of the team’s themes all season has been to take the season “one game at a time.” That idea may be more important than ever for the Hounds. According to King, although an outsider may think a top-ranked team like the Hounds would have trouble focusing “one week at a time” in the Sectional, he said there is no such problem for the Hounds. He said the team knows it cannot afford to look ahead to the tough competition it may face down the road because one loss ends any team’s season.
“The reality is you have to take it one game at a time because you lose and you’re done,” King said. “It’s what you have to do to get to the State game.”
While the Hounds keep their focus on only the upcoming game, there will likely be much more media build-up centered around a possible State Finals rematch from last season. Warren Central is looking to capture its fifth straight State Championship, and the possibility of another Carmel-Warren Central match-up, after Carmel’s 42-35 victory over Warren on Homecoming, would warrant a boatload of publicity. Warren would be out to avenge its only MIC loss this season, while the Hounds would be looking to steal the title of State Champions from the Warriors, an opportunity they couldn’t cash in on last year.
However, Moriarity said that the loss in last year’s State Finals provided the team with some valuable experience for this season. He, however, doesn’t want the team to dwell on last year’s disappointment, but instead try to focus on winning each week.
“I don’t know that we’ll talk much about that we came up short,” Moriarity said. “We’ll talk about that each game’s important if you want to play for a State Championship because you’ve got to win now if you want to keep playing.”
King said last season’s loss was a humbling experience for the Hounds, but they’re keeping their hopes high for this season.
“(The loss) humbles you a little bit knowing you’re not invincible,” King said. “Obviously the goal is to win a State Championship this year, but it’s a long journey to get there.”
Cross-country teams finish season strong
November 1, 2007
By: Mitch Ringenberg <mringenberg@hilite.org>
After finishing this year’s strong season by placing third and fourth in the State, the cross-country teams are looking forward to another excellent season. The cross-country teams have finished with one of their best seasons yet.
Kelly McCurdy, varsity runner and junior said, “Our team has been improving a lot throughout the season. The girls have been running better than they have all year. I’m hoping we continue to improve.” Improvement was indeed shown, after the team placed second at the Semistate tournament and scored 142 points in the State tournament in Terre Haute.
Dan Kinn, a varsity runner and junior, said, “I think this season went pretty well. We did a good job advancing and we definitely ran our best race at the Regional. Also, we’re only losing one senior in the top seven, so I think next season will be one of our best. So we will be returning hard in the winter, summer and the off-season.
When it comes to bringing back the same skill and determination next season, the women’s team has been planning on bringing in some new talent. “We have one girl next year who we hope will perform well and help out a bit,” McCurdy said. With this bit of good news, Carmel cannot help but look forward to another excellent season next year.
Women’s swimming keeps tradition alive
November 1, 2007
By: Daniyal Habib <dhabib@hilite.org>
The women’s swimming team has one of the nation’s longest active State championship streaks for any sport, at 21 in a row. Jessie Hammes, varsity swimmer and junior, said that even with all of the success, she still finds ways to stay motivated and go out and win more.
“Goals are the best thing to keep me going,” Hammes said. “I have long-term goals that will take a while to accomplish, and then I have short-term goals to keep me on track. We try to motivate each other as a team, too. If someone is having a hard day, we try to remind each other what we’re working for.”
Swimming Head Coach Chris Plumb said that the previous teams motivate them to be even better.
“We are motivated to be the best that we can be. The swimmers and teams that came before us only motivate us to do better,” Plumb said.
Even though the team has earned its stripes with its amazing run, Hammes said that she and the entire team still have to prove themselves.
“As an individual I’m always working to improve my times and my place at State. The ultimate goal is to score points for the team. As a team, I think it’s important to prove that we can still do well even though we lost a lot of powerful seniors,” Hammes said.
As for this year, the rest of the team will have to step up after the loss of 11 seniors from last year, including five who were part of the State team.
“I know that the loss of our seniors will be hard, but we have a lot of new freshmen who are willing to step up. The competition from other teams will be really intense this year,” Hammes said.
Past championships raise expectations and the pressure to perform, but Hammes said she thinks of it a different way. “We try to think of it as 21 years of support instead of 21 years of pressure. But there’s still a lot of pressure because we don’t want to let everyone down, and it’s hard to know that there are a lot of other teams rooting against us.
“To be honest, I have no idea (how far this year’s team can go). If we keep pushing ourselves the way we have been, I think we can do anything,” Hammes said. Plumb said the seniors will be key. “The key will be senior leadership. Our seniors have to be hardest working both in and out of the pool, leaders in the locker room, and believe in what we are doing. If the seniors are leading like I know that they are capable of, we will be great.”
Women’s team looks to avenge Sectional loss
November 1, 2007
By: Jessee Jordan <jjordan@hilite.org>
With the start of the winter sports season, the women’s basketball team also has a new chance for success. Last year, the team ended their season with a Sectional loss to Fishers 58-54. The first chance that the women’s team will have to redeem that loss to Fishers this season will be on Nov. 30.
Last year’s team finished with a 16-5 record. Head Coach Scott Bowen said, “The girls had a great year last year and I hope that we can keep that going this year. With having only one senior on the team last year we are bringing back all the starters and I know I can find someone to replace the one senior.”
Since there was only one senior on the team last year — Jenna Betulius — the younger juniors, sophomores and even freshmen got a lot of varsity time and experience.
Sophomore Desiree Dixon, who hopes to play on the varsity squad this year, said, “Jenna was like the guardian of the team she was always looking out for all of the others.”
Junior Lauren McRoberts said, “With all of our starters coming back, I think that we have a pretty good chance at Sectionals and State.”
The team’s first two games this year are at home, the first of which is a scrimmage against Pike tomorrow at 11 a.m. Then the team competes against Anderson Highland next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.
ISTEP+ to be moved back to the spring
November 1, 2007
By: Min Qiao <mqiao@hilite.org>
On Oct. 5, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced that the ISTEP+ test will be moved back to the spring. According to the official State of Indiana Web site, the new ISTEP+ will be administered at the end of the school year starting in spring 2009 and will allow schools to prepare students for the entire school year.
Assistant Principal Ronda Eshleman said the new ISTEP+ exam will simply be the end-of-course assessments for Algrebra I, Biology I and English 10. It will be broken up into three parts and students will take each test separately upon completion of each respective course.
“(The new ISTEP+) will be administered in the spring of 2009, which means that all current freshmen will be the first class to take this exam,” Eshleman said. “In addition, they would also have to take the current ISTEP+ in the fall, which will be the last time this old ISTEP+ will given.”
Freshman Olivia LaMagna said that this new policy is a good idea because the material will be fresh in the student’s mind when he or she has to take the test.
“In terms of scores, I think that they should be higher just because we do not have to wait and take (the ISTEP+) after a whole summer,” LaMagna said. “I also think that it might be a better assessment of what we learned.”
Eshleman said that another one of the arguments for this change is that school would not have to start as early if ISTEP+ is given in the spring. However, she feels that this argument is invalid.
“If you take the test the first of May, what are you going to do for the next five weeks after?” Eshleman said. “If anything, you would think that this will cause school to start earlier so that teachers can get through all the standards before students have to take that test.”
As to the scores going up because of the new ISTEP+, Eshleman said that the new high school graduating ISTEP+ exams will be an end-of-course assessment, just like the Core 40 tests, and the pass rates for Core 40 have been much lower than the pass rates for ISTEP+.
“We are hoping that is not going to be the case when it becomes a graduation qualification test,” Eshleman said. “There are still many questions about the new way of testing because we don’t have any statistics and information about it.”
Other questions about this new way of testing include whether or not English 10 will have to be taught differently in order to accommodate the new testing system and how the test will be administered.
“We have not really heard anything about (ISTEP+ moving to the spring), but however they do it, I think it is a good idea,” LaMagna said, “It’s just aggravating for (this year’s freshmen) because (next year) we have to take both of them.”
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