Update on football and soccer

Time to get caught up on the fall sports.

The junior high soccer team has played three games since I last updated. On September 17 they played Cornerstone of South Chicago Heights. I'm hoping I get this correct, but I think the guys lost that one 1-0.

Last Friday the boys traveled to Crete to play Deer Creek. This one was not fun. From what I heard, Deer Creek played very well together and had one really, really good player. Who the Deer Creek coach left in on offense even when the lead was six, seven, eight. Apparently the goal was to beat us by ten, as their coaches were heard encouraging the team to do just that, and Deer Creek pushed hard at the end to get the two more goals. Because a win isn't enough, you know. You have to humiliate your opponent. [sarcasm off]. Thankfully our boys stayed positive and kept hustling right up to the end.

Tonight the Patriots' opponent was Illinois Lutheran's "B" team, which is made up mostly of 5th and 6th graders with two or three 7th graders, which matches up age-wise well with our guys. I was able to travel to this game, but I did miss the first few minutes, in which Steve Tijerina scored his first goal of the season. Shortly after we arrived, James Lally got one and it was 2-0, which I believe was our first two-goal lead of the year. But, alas, the Chargers scored the next two. We went ahead again; IL got one of their own. That's where it was at half, 3-3. The Patriots opened the scoring in the second half but again, IL tied it up. Again, the Patriots went ahead and again, IL tied it up. One more time the Patriots took a one goal lead, which would be their last. IL scored two in a row to make it 7-6, IL. The Patriots scored one more time to tie it up. We knew time was running out, and at this point we were hoping for a win, but a tie would be good too. It was not to be. A few minutes before the end of the game, the Chargers scored once more. The ref blew the whistle and it was over. Another loss; this one 8-7. It was a fun, clean good game and it was just too bad that the boys couldn't got the win.

It looks like the only chance now is to beat Southside, which is a recent addition to the schedule. It will take place Friday, October 8 at 2:00 PM at their campus in Oak Lawn.  We do have another game against Deer Creek next Monday at 4:45.

A brief summary of the football game on Saturday: At some point during the game, we stopped keeping track of the score. Someone reported to me that we had scored nine touchdowns to none for Luther East. At least we were playing our young kids and weren't trying to run up the score. Next Saturday we have a quad with our two teams, Luther East and Gurnee. The first game is either at 9:00 or 10:30. We'll let you know.