Winning streak comes to an end

The Patriots winning streak reached seven before it was abruptly ended this past Monday by the Glenwood School team, 3-0 on Glenwood's home field.

Glenwood's team was quite a contrast to the teams we have been playing recently. They were big, skilled and fast. On top of that, they had a very good, very active goalie. They were quite a bit different then they were last year. Last season we split our two games with them, but we were missing key players in the first matchup, and handled them quite easily the second time we faced them when we had a full squad. They are much better this year. Despite all that, the teams played to a 0-0 halftime score. Early on, in fact, HSRC Monee was the dominant team. The boys kept the ball down in Glenwood's half of the field, but Glenwood was able to prevent the Patriots from getting off decent shots, and the shots that were taken were wide or over the goal. One attack early was exciting - Sam passed over to Quinn who returned the ball with a sliding pass and Sam just missed wide. Toward the end of the half, Glenwood starting getting good offensive opportunities which mostly started with their goalie. After the goalie corraled the ball, his teammates would streak down the field and he would get the ball to one of them. The Patriots were caught on their heels and Glenwood would end up with a good shot. Glenwood kept up the pressure in the second half, with good shots coming off of good outlets from their goalie. About six minutes into the second half, one of their quick strikers got behind our defense and found the goal. At the forty-seven minute mark, Noel got off a shot that was only saved because of the quickness of the goalie. Henry had an opportunity with the rebound but couldn't quite control it. Glenwood's goalie finally grabbed the ball and on the ensuing counterattack, Glenwood scored again. Despite desperate efforts by the the offense, we couldn't dent the scoreboard and Glenwood scored one more before time ran out. One item of sportsmanship to note: Henry cut his lip early in the game and had to go out for a while. Glenwood had the ball when this happened, and when play started up again with a free kick by Glenwood, they intentionally kicked it out of bounds to give the ball back to HSRC. A very gracious move.

The three games prior were victories over Zion Lutheran of Beecher 4-1, St. Paul Lutheran 4-0 and Cornerstone 6-0. I was not able to attend the Zion game, but reports are that they were a very small and very young team. Coach Goudzwaard was able to switch players around quite a bit, so players that usually played defense were able to move up front. Henry played goal for a while as well. Our players understood the vast difference in abilities between the teams and backed off the intensity quite a bit. My understanding is that Zion appreciated that and both teams had a lot of fun. The Cornerstone game was at their home field and was the second time we had played them. They were fast but not very skilled. Noel started off the scoring with blast from a free kick about fifteen minutes into the game. Not a minute later Henry scored off of a corner kick from Noel. A minute after that Sam scored on a nice feed from Henry. And about three minutes later Quinn was given credit for a goal that Cornerstone put into their own net. Coach G flipped positions in the second half and there was no scoring until with about five minutes to go, he put everyone back in their normal positions and Henry and Noel scored a goal each in quick succession to make the final 6-0. The St. Paul game was more evenly played, but again, the opponent had difficulty getting off a decent shot and our offense was better. Noel and Sam each scored in each half to account for our four goals.

Today the team has an early game at Southside Baptist of Oak Lawn. One more regular season game remains after that, a home-field rematch against Glenwood next Thursday, then the conference tournament the next Saturday. Come on out next Thursday to our final home game and support the Patriots!