The Jesuit Men’s soccer team finished their non league games with a 3-3-3 record.
Jesuit 3 wins were from Central Catholic, Lincoln, and La Salle Prep. Jesuit hosted the Rams for their first victory of the season ending with a 4-1 victory. The next week Jesuit hosted Lincoln and kept them scoreless, beating them 2-0. Their third win was an away game at La Salle which ended in a 3-2 win.
Their 3 losses were from the Summit Storm, the Lakeridge Pacers, and the Ashland Grizzlies. They traveled to Summit for their first game of the season, which ended 0-1. The second loss to Lakeridge was a home game which ended in 1-2. All three goals were scored in the first half. This was a very anticipated game for the whole state with Lakeridge being ranked #1 and Jesuit being the defending champs. The last loss was to Ashland. They hosted them and lost in a close 1-2 game.
The Crusaders ended non league play with 3 draws. Two of these draws were 0-0 against an away game at McDaniel and a home game against Grant. Their last draw was against McKay which ended 1-1.
So far the Crusaders have had a pretty tough schedule and look prepared going into Metro play.
Senior left back Henry Vanderhoff is aware of the team’s struggles and feels confident that they are ready for metro play.
“I think that non-league posed a lot of challenges for us. We rose to the occasion against good teams like Lincoln and Lakeridge. Even though we lost to Lakeridge, we played one of our best games all year, even dealing with some of our top players being injured. As far as Metro goes, I’m pretty confident in the team that we can get it rolling, we just have to have a good mindset going into every game and play like it’s a big game.”
The team has had a lot of injuries and adversity, but they manage to keep a positive mindset and focus towards what is ahead.
Senior defender Carlos Botiva knows what the team can do and that is to bring home another state championship.
“We’ve had a long, and difficult preseason as we played top ranked teams to better prepare us for the Metro league and on our journey to holding big blue again. We have picked up some injuries but by the time it matters, I am very confident the team will be at 100%.”
Jesuit is ready to compete against the Metro League and make a strong run in the playoffs like they did last year. Jesuit’s first Metro game is on Monday, October 6th against the Mountainside Mavericks, at Mountainside.
