The IC Catholic Prep Knights traveled into Chicago to take on the DePaul Prep Rams in the Tom Winiecki Gym. The Knights didn’t have enough. The Rams jumped out to an early lead and stayed away getting the underclassmen into the game late. Rams 67, Knights 21.
DePaul Prep Defeats Leo 62-23 on Senior Night
The DePaul Prep Rams defeated Leo Friday night 62-23 at home. It was senior night. The school also honored academic standouts and hosted a faculty appreciation night. The full house saw the Rams hitting on all cylinders with significant contributions from deep into the bench.
The Rams improve their record to a previously unattained 21-2 overall and 4-0 in the Chicago Catholic League. Certainly the best record that I have seen more than two-thirds of the way through a DePaul Prep/Gordon Tech season. Maybe not the toughest but the most important part of the season lies ahead—key Chicago Catholic League matchups.
The Rams have IC Catholic Providence, St. Ignatius, DeLaSalle, Mount Carmel and Fenwick left to play. Plus today’s game against Wisconsin powerhouse Peewaukee and the regular season finale against Benet.
One game at a time.
Morgan Park Falls to St. Francis in 5A Quarterfinal
In a game marred by constant penalties, the last remaining Chicago Public League team, the Morgan Park Mustangs, fell to the St. Francis Spartans 37-14 in IHSA 5A quarterfinals Saturday.
Turnovers and penalties throttled the Mustangs in the first half. The Mustangs had a sixty-two touchdown called back. On the next play, Morgan Park QB Marcus Thaxton throw a side arm pass late down the middle of the field. A big no-no. St. Francis easily picked it off. The Spartans worked the ball down to the Morgan Park nine yard-line and scored on a quick slant to the slot receiver, senior wide receiver Ian Willis. Even so, it was 13-8 St. Francis until late in the second quarter.
Morgan Park (10-1, 7-0) came into the game as the 4 seed with a 10-1 overall record. Its only loss this year was to second ranked Mount Carmel 22-12 in week two.
The Mustangs were 7-0 in the Chicago Public Leagues’ new super-conference, the new Red Division. Before the season, CPS Sports Administration combined the top teams in the Red Division into one sixteen team super-conference. Seven other teams from the conference made the IHSA playoffs the season, Whitney Young, Kenwood, Amundsen, Lane, Simeon, Phillips and Taft. Morgan Park was the last surviving team. It was Morgan Park’s twenty-fifth appearance in the IHSA football playoffs since 1985.
St. Francis in Wheaton came into the game on a hot streak. After getting pummeled 47-0 by Loyola in early October, the Spartans have put together a four-game win streak at the right time. The Spartans come out of the Orange Division of the CCL/ESCC joint Catholic Conference in football this year. The Orange also has two other surviving playoff teams, IC Catholic Prep and Nazareth Academy.
St. Francis is no stranger to playoff football having qualified sixteen time since 1997, winning a state championship in 2005 and advancing to the 4A semifinal game last year.
The game turned late in the first half with St. Francis quarterback Alessio Milivojevic’s eleven-yard touchdown run.
“I like getting hit once or twice on a run. Then I get locked in, clicked in,” said St. Francis senior quarterback and Ball State recruit Alessio Milivojevic. It was the Milivojevic’s 11-yard touchdown run sparked his game on Saturday. Sun-Times Reporter Michael O’Brien captured a video and included it in his Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/michaelsobrien/status/1723424427335925919
After the Milivojevic’s touchdown to make the game 19-8, Morgan Park’s quarterback gave up another interception with under a minute to go. The Spartans worked their way down the short field for a twenty-two yard field goal making the half time score 22-8.
In the second half, Morgan Park scored on a quick bubble screen out to senior wide receiver and Montana recruit Chris Dorr who took it up the sideline 40 yards for the score.
But the second half was just about St. Francis and Milivojevic being able to drive the ball with the run and the pass. Morgan Park gave up two more touchdowns and fell 37-14.
St. Francis advances to play conference rival Nazareth next Saturday in the 5A semi-final. Curiously, the two other surviving 5A teams, Joliet Catholic and Providence Catholic, are also from the CCL/ESCC conference.
DePaul Prep Falls to St. Ignatius in Sectional
Preview of my story this week in Inside Publications:
The DePaul Prep girls’ varsity volleyball team fell to the St. Ignatius Wolfpack on Monday in the IHSA 3A sectional semifinal at St. Ignatius. A large crowd filled the St. Ignatius Gentile Gymnasium for the match. This high-level volleyball was action packed. The teams were never separated by more than five points in either match. The Wolfpack were just that little bit better at defending the attacks by the Rams. Ignatius topped the Rams in two sets, 25-20 and 25-22.
The Rams and their fourth-year head coach Caroline Gajzler came into the sectional fresh off their first regional since Gajzler took over the program four years ago. Gajzler, an assistant athletic director at DePaul Prep and former physical education teacher, was gracious, if not clearly disappointed after the game.
“Kudos to St. Ignatius. They played a hell of a game. They are very scrappy, in terms of defense. [St. Ignatius sophomore Skyler Greene] #10 on the right side gave us issues the entire match. Congratulations to them. On our side, we broke down in our serve and passing games. In the first set, we missed four serves and we were not passing like in our typical game,” Gajzler said.
“We started off the season inconsistent in our match play. We were having difficulty finding the court offensively. Throughout the season our attackers found consistency. Our back row found consistency. With that our confidence grew. We found a good line up that was meshing well together. And then we won some big matches. That really gave us the confidence boost,” Gajzler continued.
Rams’ “libero’ senior Charlotte Collins was a leader on the Rams squad.
“This was our best season yet. We finally clicked as a team. Everyone really wanted it this year,” Collins said after the game. Collins noted the improvement of the Rams squad from last year.
“We really found our rhythm. We learned how to play with each other and connect. Our setters connected with our hitters better. And just effort. We stepped up the game. We wanted to go farther this year and we did,” Collins said.
“Having a bond with everyone and being able to trust your teammates is just so important. If you don’t have that, everyone can be amazing on the team, but if there is no trust and support, then you can’t do anything,” Collins continued.
It was a successful season for the Rams; a 29-9 record with a thirteen-match win streak going it the St. Ignatius sectional match. With the dramatic increase in enrollment at DePaul Prep, the Rams moved up from 2A to 3A in the IHSA four level volleyball classification system. This actually helped the Rams advance through the regional finals. They did not have to face powerhouse teams like IC Catholic and Timothy Christian that defeated them in recent years.
Last weeks’ regional championship over North Grand at Prosser was a milestone for Gajzler with her first regional championship. Last year Gajzler’s Rams suffered an emotional close loss to powerhouse IC Catholic in the regional championship at DePaul. Before that was the lost COVID year with no playoffs. Before that was another close lose to powerhouse Timothy Christian in a regional final.
St. Ignatius went on to advance to the State Finals in Bloomington this coming weekend with wins in the sectional final over DeLaSalle and St. Lawrence in the Super-sectional, both teams that DePaul Prep beat in the regular season.
DePaul Prep Opens Volleyball Season against IC Catholic Prep
The match was basically as close as it could get. The DePaul Prep Rams fell in three sets to IC Catholic Prep by the closest of margins, 25 to 23 in the final set at DePaul Prep’s Tom Winiecki Gym.
A big crowd in DePaul Prep’s Tom Winiecki Gym welcomed the return of high level volleyball to the Northside.
Should be a great season.
DePaul Prep Falls to IC Catholic in Regional Final
In a rematch of last year’s regional final, the DePaul Prep Rams girls volleyball team fell again to IC Catholic in an exciting three set match on Thursday, October 27, 2022.
IC Catholic Prep Volleyball Wins DePaul Prep IHSA Regional
The Immaculate Conception Catholic Prep defeated the DePaul Prep Rams in two sets to win the IHSA Regional on Thursday evening (October 28, 2021).
I don’t know much about volleyball but the IC Knights played vary well as it appeared to me.
The new configuration of the court limited where I could shoot from. But I found a good spot. I hope you like the photos.
