JEFFERSON TWP - The Little Engine That Could is a popular children's story.

The Little Engine That Does is the Calvary Academy girls volleyball program.

Since winning the National Association of Christian Athletes championship last November in Tennessee - defeating a Texas school six times its size in the title game - the Minutemen have kept right on going.

The team has lost less than five games in the past five years, a schedule that includes a 16-game regular season and a handful of tournaments each year against public schools much bigger than itself.

"If I had to pick a word to describe our team, it would be unity," veteran coach Jodie Osborne said. "These girls function as a team.

"They grew up together and they care about each other."

Calvary Academy has 53 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. It has 29 students from seventh grade up - and 13 are on the volleyball team.

Osborne's starting lineup features junior captain and middle hitter Carrie Ward, sophomores Tianna Osborne (setter), Emma Kile (middle hitter) and Jaylene Callen (setter/hitter), freshman outside hitter Jaclyn Zellonis and eighth-grade outside hitter Kristin Raisley.

The top substitutes are eighth-grader Candace Ward and sophomore Joy Thompson.

The team is young - and defeats high-caliber public school programs with older players on a regular basis.

"Most of those teams take us lightly when we play them the first time, but not the second time," Osborne said. "We lose that advantage."

Osborne has been coaching the Minutemen for 18 years. She said the program began to turn in 1998, when Tawnie Osborne was a sixth-grader on the squad.

Tawnie Osborne - one of the coach's daughters - is now the freshman setter on the Butler County Community College squad. Former Calvary Academy teammate Stephanie Lawson is the libero (defensive specialist) for the Pioneers.

"Tawnie was such a tremendous leader here," the coach said. "She brought a fierceness and steadiness to the team.

"Everything rises and falls on leadership. She was a great power hitter despite her small size and played in pain quite a bit."

Tawnie Osborne has already had two ACL tears and five knee operations. She gutted out each season in a knee brace, then had surgery after each season.

"Her knee would go out and she knew a procedure to pop it back in," Coach Osborne said. "During the nationals last year, she couldn't get it to go back in and she sat out while her teammates beat the defending champion (Crescent, Kansas) in the semifinals.

"We normally play a 6-2 and Tawnie said she could play in the finals if we played a 5-1. I asked the girls and they said they wanted her out there 'even if she was in a wheelchair.'

"Toward the end of the game, Tawnie's knee was weakening and she'd start to fall backward as she hit the ball. Her teammates would rush behind her and catch her. They said 'Tawnie carried us all season, now we can carry her.' That's the unity I'm talking about," the coach added.

The team voted to retire Tawnie Osborne's No. 7 uniform. It now sits in a glass case, mounted on a wall outside of the gymnasium.

"Those are pretty big footsteps to follow," said Carrie Ward, this year's captain. "It's hard sometimes because the girls expect Tawnie and I'm not Tawnie.

"It all works out. If someone is having a bad game, we team up and support her. Nobody is a burden on this team. Everybody's a blessing."

The Minutemen rarely play games on Saturdays because the players work bus routes to get younger kids to attend Sunday school classes.

With Tawnie Osborne gone, younger sister Tianna, a sophomore, is the new setter. Fellow sophomore Kile has won MVP honors at virtually every tournament the team has played in.

"We play with heart," Kile said. "We're scrappers. We'll run for balls that other teams would give up on.

"Coach Osborne has everybody play everywhere. I'm tall and I can spike the ball. But I can set from the back row, too."

Tianna Osborne admitted to nearly quitting volleyball a few times. The loyalty to her team - and her sister - wouldn't let her.

"In a way, I've always been in Tawnie's shadow," she said. "But during that time, she helped me become a better player.

"When I saw her pain last year, I wanted to quit. But we're such a close team, I couldn't do it. We have a lot of sayings and my favorite is that talent can win some games, but heart can take you all the way. We've proven that."

Most of these players have been together since fifth grade. Coach Osborne instituted a rule a few years ago that her players had to serve over-hand from fifth grade on if they were going to play.

"There are three phases to volleyball," she said. Dig, set and kill. The girl; spiking the ball is in the glamour position, but not on this team.

"A big girl who can spike does not impress me. A short girl who can dig does not impress me. A big girl who can dig and a short girl who can spike … That impresses me."

And Calvary Academy continues to impress opponents by beating them. The team has one loss this year - at the 24-team Quentin Road Volleyball Classic in Chicago - and settled for third place there.

"We took one on the chin and, yeah, there were tears," Ward said. "But we had to play the third-place game right away and won it in straight sets."

During practice in the school gym, Calvary Academy graduates James and John Siahura, along with senior boys Zak Kile and Joe Renwick, and Tawnie Osborne and Lawson when they're not on the court for BCCC, show up and scrimmage against the Minutemen.

Osborne and Lawson paid for their own plane tickets and flew to Chicago to help Coach Osborne guide the squad.

"That was no surprise to me, but it was to the girls," Coach Osborne said. "Though they've graduated, they're still part of our family. They just wanted to be there."