Boys soccer: Tri-City soccer night raising money for good cause
The annual Tri-City Night of soccer is scheduled for Tuesday as St. Charles East will battle St. Charles North at 5 p.m. and be followed with the Geneva vs. Batavia match at 7 p.m. Batavia is hosting both games.
Once again, the teams and their communities will join forces to help a local family. This year they are raising money for cancer research in honor of Tricia DePasquale whose son Michael DePasquale plays for St. Charles North. Tricia passed away in July.
Many of Michael DePasquale's club teammates now play on the four teams who will be in action on Tuesday and knew Tricia since they were young boys.
In addition, the future will be on display at halftime of both games as eighth grade soccer players have been invited to play in a scrimmage for their future high school teams and will receive a complimentary T-shirt for participating.
Whitefish without Pepsi
Crystal Lake South (11-2-1) was looking to do something bigger than the Pepsi this year and found it in Whitefish Bay, Wis., on Saturday afternoon as the Gators made the business trip a successful one with a 2-1 victory.
Tomasz Slawek and Tom Couglin scored as the Gators knocked off a previously undefeated team that was ranked No. 8 in the nation according to prepsoccer.net.
"It was an awesome experience, a great facility and we got a big result," Gators coach Brian Allen said. "We used to go to Pepsi and were looking for a Saturday test type of game and the New Trier coach said they played them in 2019 so I reached out."
Not only did the Gators get a big victory, but enjoyed spending a lot of time together as a team.
"Both of us got good stuff out of it," Allen said. "And it was a good team trip for bonding and you need that for this point in the season. It's a definite intangible beyond the result."
Livin' the soccer life at East
St. Charles East (12-1) takes a 6-game winning streak into its crossover clash with St. Charles North (4-2-5) on Tuesday.
The Saints, who played 19 games over a course of 40 days in the spring, are playing extremely well this fall, and the fact that so many players in the program have spent time together in the same calendar year has made a huge impact.
"It feels like it really hasn't stopped and spring went to summer and we rolled right into another season," Saints coach Vince DiNuzzo said. "We had a lot of problems solving with the new system this summer and learning how to play in it and the roles and responsibilities of working through those growing pains. We probably wouldn't be where we are at this point in a fall season if we didn't have that."
Last spring there may not have been a postseason, but the Saints remained interested in a conference title prize, battling St. Charles North until the very end.
"We've been blessed to have a lot of talent to be able to be competitive in conference and maintain that mentality of playing for something up until the last game," DiNuzzo said. "We really combined our schedule with some great programs and the guys were motivated and we have a lot of youth on the roster seeing the positive effect."
Keep on, keepin' on
Westminster Christian, with an enrollment 121, will look to extend its unbeaten streak to 714 days when it travels to Schaumburg Christian on Tuesday afternoon.
The Warriors were undefeated during the abbreviated spring season and remain unbeaten today (9-0-2) so you have to go all the way back to Oct. 15, 2019 to find a Westminster Christian loss (a 3-2 decision to Indian Creek in the postseason).
"The kids have really bonded," Warriors coach David Siers said. "We're still figuring some things out. It was good to play some bigger schools to figure some things out which has been amazing and we've had some depth this year that we maybe didn't have in the past."
Juniors Nate Siers (14 goals, 9 assists) and Peter DiNapoli (5 goals, 6 assists) are leading the team in those two offensive categories, but they are far from the only ones contributing to what amounts to a 20-game program-long unbeaten streak.
The Warriors tied Hampshire, beat Burlington Central and held on to beat Larkin while playing down a man late.
"Hampshire was probably the best team we've played and we had a great game against them," David Siers said. "They have a really good forward so they came back after we were up 3-1 but we hung it out and it was a great learning process."
Young Cadets on the rise
Freshmen Diego Tellez and Giovanni Magana and sophomores Mactzil Uriel Lopez and Alvaro Alanis are among a young core group making an impact at Marmion where the future is now with senior Nate Sowers.
Marmion (7-5-2) was handed a heartbreaking first conference loss, 3-1 at Loyola last week, but still is in the Chicago Catholic League Blue Division race.
"If you look at our losses, we've lost to all the big boys," Marmion coach Gerardo Alvarez said. "We've had a tough schedule and done well with it. Historically for bigger schools (playing Marmion) was a game to get on the schedule to get rhythm, to get a win and I don't think anyone wants to play us now. We've gone toe-to-toe with these teams. We tied Plainfield East and they've had a heck of a season."