The Loyola Academy Ramblers (7-1, 1-1) came back from five points down at the half to edge the St. Ignatius Wolfpack 40-37 (5-3, 0-1) at Loyola University Chicago’s Gentile Center Friday evening.
The Gentile Center was jumping. I have never seen student sections as crowded and as vocal at a high school game in the 500 years that I have been going to games. But then again, this is my first Jesuit Cup game.
The Wolfpack jumped out to an early lead. The Ramblers dialed up the defense with combination zone, man-to-man and 1-3-1 trapping defenses.
“We were really calm,” said Loyola head coach Tom Livatino about falling behind 11-0 at the start. “They figured it out.”
“It’s something in our program that we take a lot of pride in this game,” Loyola Academy coach Tom Livatino said after the game. “We just been fortunate enough to come out ahead,” Livatino said of the Ramblers streak of winning ten of the last eleven Jesuit Cup matchups with St. Ignatius.
“We are a long way from who we are going to be,” Livatino contined. “Our football guys, the reason we were going offense defense, because they don’t even know our sets. We have a long way to go. It’s a great win.”
“We’ve always been a defensive team. We will never not be a defensive team. It might not be everybody’s taste. We were pretty successful. We didn’t do anything special. We trapped a little bit in the second half. It doesn’t matter; guys just made plays.
“We did a poor job of closing out the game and time and score stuff. We made some bad mistakes and bad decisions. We did not go to the free throw line and make two. We’ve got to be better than that. It’s early. Our guys persevered and we got a great win,” Livatino said.
“We got to 1-1 in the [Chicago Catholic] League.The game is huge for the Jesuit Cup and our community and our seniors. It means a lot. But we have to get to 1-1 in the League. We play in the best league in Illinois, maybe the best league in the Midwest. So we had to get to 1-1 and we did.”
“Our seniors wear this game as a badge of honor. It means a lot. [The team’s] legacy has something to do with this game,” Livatino said.
“They went to their 1-3-1 [defense]. We were expecting it but we did not adjust well to it. It got us a few times. But we also got away from some of the things that had gotten there in the first place. It was a combination of that adjustment they made with the 1-3-1, them kind of solidifying their stuff and us getting away from what got us there,” said St. Ignatius coach Matt Monroe.
“We are as prepared as we ever can be when we play them, and they still run their stuff really well,” Monroe said of the Loyola defensive style of play.
“For us, it’s important to keep perspective. The Jesuit Cup is really important. It brings two Jesuit communities together. It’s more of a celebration of what the Jesuit education and the Jesuit mission is all about. So when we have a packed house and we are playing in front of all of our family, friends and alumni, it’s a big deal to us. We want to bring that Jesuit Cup home. The the other side of it is our season’s a journey. If you look at our team the last four or five years, every journey has been different. Whether it is starting slow, hitting a dip in the middle of the season or finishing strong at the end. Big games, like the Jesuit Cup or other ones, are part of the journey. It’s dissappointing not to bring that home but we’ve got Homewood-Flossmoor on Sunday. We’ve got Aurora Catholic on Tuesday, Mount Carmel on Friday. It just keeps going.”
A long way to go in the season. The Catholic League Blue is up for grabs.
