The 2009 soccer season has been a pleasant surprise up to this point. Who would have thought that the combined record of our 3 teams would be 23-1-1? That is impressive I think. Not to mention, for the first time since 1995, the Blue Devil varsity team is being mentioned in the Region rankings. Two weeks ago we were #13 in the Adidas/NSCAA region VII rankings and last week we were up to #11. When the rankings come out next Tuesday, we could see a big jump as several teams above us lost last week, including 3 teams from Illinois that were ahead of us.
Now, if you ask coach Longo, he will say that while these rankings are nice to have, he is more concerned about where we finish the season as opposed to what people think about us during the season. I couldn't agree more! However, I think it is a great accomplishment for these young men who have worked so very hard to get our program where it is today. I can only hope that they continue to work hard to stay in the rankings and prove they are truly worthy of being there. Every team is gunning to beat Quincy High and we will need to bring our A game every time.
As for our games last week, it saw us take to the road twice to play two very good teams at the varsity level who both were state runner-up in their respective state and class in 2008. On Tuesday we traveled to Springfield to play Sacred Heart-Griffin and we were a bit undermanned as we played without our sweeper Zach Forbes. Coach Longo always feels that no 1 player is irreplacable and when your number is called, you need to be ready to step in. That is exactly what Jake Killday did for us on Tuesday. Jake had been coming off the bench to play forward for us and was doing well. However, we needed him at sweeper this game and he played great. We moved the ball well against SHG and should have scored 2 or 3 goals in the first half as we missed some golden chances. In the second half, Matt Burrus made a great play in the middle of the field and found Ethan Venvertloh open on the left and Ethan gave us a 1-0 lead with 15 minutes left. The joy lasted about 10 seconds as that is all it took for SHG to come down and tie things up. It was a comedy of errors on our part starting with our forwards and ending with our GK. At least 6 players blew an opportunity to stop that goal from happening and none were up to the task. Rather than sulk about it, we stepped up the pressure and Taylor Nord put us ahead to stay with a goal with about 5 minutes remaining. It was a good road win and only the 2nd loss of the year for SHG, whose other loss was to nationally ranked and defending state Champion Peoria Notre Dame. Our JV won on this night as well 3-0 and it was good for them as their previous game against Moline was not a real good effort and resulted in our only loss thus far in the season.
On Saturday we traveled to Jefferson City to take on the defending Missouri Class 2 state runner-up Helias Crusaders. We tied them 2-2 last year and they were undefeated coming into the game. It took us quite a while to sort things out in this game. Their field was very hard and very fast and we just didn't adjust real well. We also had a hard time staying onside, and it just was one of those games. We battle through the first half scoreless and worse yet, only had 1 shot the entire half, and it wasn't a good one. We almost had to plead with them at halftime to play with more passion and intensity. The 2nd half was much better and with 15 minutes to go in the game, we finally caught their defense sleeping on a throw in and Matt Burrus crossed the ball to a wide open Bronson Melvin who headed it home. It was a great moment, not only because we finally got on the board, but because it was the first career goal for Bronson, who is a FRESHMAN! Our defense played great throughout as usual and Matt Burrus was able to seal the game with a late goal to give us a 2-0 victory and run our record to 9-0-1.
The JV team won 5-1 getting 2 goals from Patrick Bentzinger and single goals from Joe Bevelheimer, Alan Sieck, and TyReek Scott.
The Freshman also played at Helias and improved their record to 8-0-1 with a 2-0 victory.
The varsity will be on the road twice again next week when we go to UTHS on Tuesday and Springfield High on Friday. We also host Rock Island Alleman on Saturday.
It's homecoming week this week so check out the parade on Thursday and catch the football game on Friday. The football team is 4-0 on the season and we are pretty proud of their efforts too.
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