Season wrap up

The second season of the HSRC junior high soccer team in now complete, with the post-season banquet taking place on Thursday. This season was far more successful in terms of wins and losses than the first year, as the Patriots finished up with six wins and six losses, after finishing last year without a win.

At the last post, the Patriots were 2-3. Those two wins were consecutive and were the first two of what turned out to be a five-game winning streak. The third win in the streak was 5-1 victory over Cornerstone of Chicago Heights. This was a good measuring stick of how far the team had come from last year, as the team lost to Cornerstone last year 1-0. The next game was against Zion Lutheran of Beecher, a late add to the schedule. The game was at Zion's home field. The details are a bit murky, but I think the score was about 6-0. The last game in the winning streak was against St. Paul of Oak Lawn. This game was our second and last home game. The game was a lot of fun, and I believe the final score of that one was 8-2, with Noel scoring six of the goals.

Alas, the fun came to an end against Southside Baptist on October 7. Last year we only lost by one, but they got a lot bigger and we got beat 4-1. The conference tournament was up next. Four of the organizations in the conference had middle school teams - HSRC, Portage, Granger and Victory. We had Granger up first. Granger dominated the game, going out to a big early lead before going on to the 7-3(?) victory. In the consolation game, the boys took on Portage. They moved out to a two-goal lead and held on despite a last-minute goal by Portage, 5-4. The final game of the season was against Trinity Lutheran of Tinley Park. This game was also a vast improvement over last year, but still was a loss. Last year it was 8-0; this year, in a well-played game the team only lost 2-0. The loss kept the team from finishing over .500, but 6-6 is not bad. And we got a trophy.

The banquet was fun with a lot of good food. Coach Goudzwaard gave out the awards: MVP was Noel, of course. The energy(?) award was given to Sam and the newcomer award was given to Dillon. Coach noted that we outscored our opponents on the year and that Noel scored thirty-one of the forty-seven (?) that the team scored. All-in-all, a good season with a lot of improvement. Looking forward to next year.