Crown Point didn’t have the odds in its favor in last year’s Chesterton Sectional semifinal match against undefeated Valparaiso.
The Vikings were the defending champion and had all the experience from their 2014 state championship run.
But the Bulldogs, who lost twice to the Vikings in conference play, peaked at the right time. They won the match in five games and claimed the school’s second sectional title in three years.
Crown Point proceeded to knock off favored Lake Central in the regional championship match in three games before its dream season ended against Hamilton Southeastern in the semistate semifinals in five hard-fought games.
Bulldogs coach Alison Duncan said her team is already better than last year’s team, returning every startes. The Bulldogs are the overwhelming favorite to win the DAC, sectional and regional, and to become Northwest Indiana’s next hope for a trip to the Class 4A state championship.
“The expectation is we want to play well and progress and get better; it feels like last season never ended,” said Duncan, the 2015 Post-Tribune Coach of the Year. “We’ve been prepping and wanting to start our season every day since we lost to Hamilton in the semistate.
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“We’re itching to see what we need to work on and how we are going to progress.”
Three Division I commitments goes to show just how much better the Bulldogs are going to be this year.
Senior Alaina Chacon, who recorded 333 kills and 423 digs last season, committed to Florida State, while her sister, junior Morgan Chacon, who tallied 371 kills and 67 aces, is heading to Arizona State. Middle hitter Peyton Yelich, who considered joining her good friend Morgan Chacon at ASU, fell in love with Virginia Tech and will play there.
All three players figure to be a force for the Bulldogs this season.
“A lot of us had that fire underneath us in the offseason so now it’s finally time to come together as a team,” Alaina Chacon said. “We need to use our chemistry to come together.
“After semistate, it was a huge push. We’ve used that to motivate us. We were three points away (from winning the match) and that will come into our minds when we push ourselves in practice.”
Morgan Chacon agreed.
“Semistate was hard,” the junior outside hitter said. “I definitely think the experience is going to prepare us for this year’s postseason and it’s fueled us as we work harder and harder in practice to accomplish that end goal.”
Yelich, who recorded 174 blocks and 132 kills last season, said each player knows her role in this Rubik’s Cube and that will be the team’s biggest strength.
“All of us know we have an important part,” Yelich said. “It starts with a pass and the set. Our whole team has good chemistry. We constantly cheer each other and we’re all in this together.”
Duncan said last year’s surprising run through the playoffs was meant to be and should be a catapult to the 2016 postseason.
“Everything happens for a reason and I feel like we needed to get that postseason experience to get us ready for this year,” Duncan said. “I believe the biggest thing we learned in the state tournament was your attitude is everything. Our attitudes changed at the flip of a switch and we were monsters and we are going to replicate that; but now we’re older, wiser and stronger.”
Ryan Haskell is a freelance writer for the Post-Tribune.