DePaul Prep Football Waits . . .

As we were coming out of the depths of the COVID shutdown, I started planning for high school sports again. DePaul Prep was moving into a new school building and building a new football stadium. I thought I would, and still will, fully document/photograph the first game and the first season in the new stadium.

When the Governor and the IHSA moved the bulk of high school sports to the Spring, my plans changed. The Fall practices were a chance to take some photos, see the new state-of-art DePaul Prep stadium and have the players and coaches get used to having me around so I am not such a distraction when play begins.

I would like to thank DePaul Athletic Director Pat Mahoney and Head Coach Mike Passarella for graciously inviting me in and for being so accommodating. And a special thanks to the young men who carry on the proud tradition of Gordon Tech/DePaul Prep football.

As always, Go Rams!

These are some of my photos.

DePaul Prep Mens Golf Falls to Mount Carmel 166 to 170

On Thursday (September 24, 2020), the DePaul Prep mens golf team lost to Mount Carmel 164 to 170 at Jackson Park Golf Course.

Assistant golf coach and DePaul College Prep history teacher Steve Cadwallader lead a young Rams squad against Mount Carmel. Playing for the Rams were freshman Jack Kennedy (Queen of Angels), freshman Wyatt Carlson (Chicago City Day School/Coonley), sophomore Alex Johnson (St. Benedict), sophomore Emmitt Miller (St. Alphonsus), sophomore Aiden Williams (Nettelhorst) and senior Colon Pilcher (St. Alphonsus).

The nine-hole match took the best four scores of the six Rams playing. Fourteen year-old freshman phenom Wyatt Carlson lead the Rams with a four over 39. Emmitt Miller shot 42, Alex Johnson 44, Colin Pilcher 45 and Aiden Williams 49.

Mount Carmel’s junior Ahmad Raoul shot a three over 38 and lead the Caravan to victory.

“We decided to start a golf program because people at one of the very first open houses . . . talked about their desire to play golf in high school. I decided right then and there that DePaul Prep needed to start a golf program so families who wanted to play golf could do so at DePaul Prep,” DePaul Prep Athletic Director Patrick Mahoney told me.

“Combine that with a couple of parents who were great in helping us find courses and spreading the word to other families and the ball started rolling. And we could not have done it without Justin Lane who was a soccer coach. He really wanted to coach golf,” Mahoney continued.

School leadership got on board quickly.

“[DePaul College Prep] President Mary Dempsey, Principal Megan Stanton Anderson and Lisa Pilcher, Director of Finance and Operations, were extremely generous in talking through starting a golf program and allowing us to budget for it and get it off the ground.

DePaul Prep also has a woman’s golf team. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get out to any of their matches. I hope to get to one this week.

The men’s golf team has had mixed results in their inaugural season: wins against Fenwick and De La Salle, losses against Marmian, Loyola and now Mount Carmel, fifth out of six at Montini’s tournament and a postponed match against St. Laurence.

The inaugural Ram Invitational at Ridgemoor CC which teed off Saturday (Sept 26th) included Fenwick, Mount Carmel and St. Ignatius. I couldn’t make it out to Ridgemoor so I will have to fill you in later on that.

As for the photos . . .

This was my first-time shooting golf and it shows. Frankly, these photos are crap. The exposure is way off. The color looks funny. Jack Kennedy’s face is so washed out. Not my finest work; not even good. I worried more about composition than making properly exposed photos. If people were not waiting for these photos, I would not publish them.

I want to thank Sun-Times and Max Preps photographer Kirsten Stickney (Twitter: @KirstenStickney, Instragram: KirstenStickneyPhotography) for encouraging me to shoot golf. She gently nudged me out of my comfort zone. Clearly, these photos show just how much I have to learn about photography. When I start making good photos of golf, I will have Kirsten thank for making me a better photographer.

Golf is challenging to photograph. It is hard to get good photos of golfers wearing hats and always looking down. I would like to express my appreciation to Alex Johnson and Jack Kennedy for not wearing caps.

However, my main concern was the loud shutter on my Canon DSLRs. The loud shutter noise during a golfer’s swing is an unacceptable distraction. Consequently, I got a lot shots of the golfers putting.

The late afternoon sun casts shadows. Many of the teeing grounds were backlit to the sun which made for dark foregrounds and shadowed faces. I pushed the ISO higher than I would have liked for daytime.

Shutter speed was an adventure. As one might imagine golf clubs and golf balls are moving pretty fast. I could not set the shutter speed as high as I wanted.

I am certain to get out to shoot more golf matches in the future—hopefully the CCL and GCAC tournaments this week.

DePaul Prep Football Pre-Preview

“This season is going to be different for the DePaul Prep Rams.” That was how I was going to start this piece before the IHSA’s announcement Wednesday. Now, that opening sentence seems an unfunny understatement.

I originally planned this article as a preview of the historic upcoming season football. New stadium. New uniforms. New school building. Friday night games. But all our plans are constantly overtaken by events, so here we are.

On Wednesday, the IHSA announced that football is classified a “higher risk” sport and its season has been postponed until Spring. Practices can begin on February 15, 2021. The season will have seven games running from March 5, 2021, to April 16, 2021. There will only be time for two weeks of playoffs after that. So no big state tournament. The format has yet to be announced.

The IHSA issued a new plan for all interscholastic competition for this coming school year. All the details of the plan is a little beyond our purpose here but can be found at the IHSA website.

DePaul Prep head football coach Mike Passarella has been making preparations over the summer for the upcoming season as the guidelines evolved. Summer camp practices have been underway at Horner Park which are now basically over. No further practices are anticipated until September when the IHSA will allow a further 20 days no-contact practices.

“I am really happy the IHSA thought outside the box and didn’t just shut everything done,” said Passarella. “I have been preaching to the boys to do their part. Be smart and we will have football this year.” At the moment, it looks like that may still happen, just in the Spring.

Perhaps the biggest changes, other all this COVID business, are the new school campus and the new home football stadium. This writer feared that football might be on its way out as a high school sport at DePaul. Well, with the prominence of the football field and stadium in the center of the new campus, we don’t have to worry about that. Having such a beautiful new stadium clearly signals a commitment to football and surely will attract prospective students who want to play football.

The Rams will also have new helmets and uniforms. The helmets will be white. The familiar ram horns will be replaced by the new “D” logo in keeping with the rebranding by the school. The rebranding retired the Gordon Tech (Tennessee) orange in favor of a “Chicago flag” blue and red color scheme.

Last year’s team posted a record of three wins and six losses including a brutal six game Catholic League losing streak. Last season was the first for the newly combined East Suburban Catholic Conference and the Chicago Catholic League. The realignment into six divisions didn’t help the Rams improve their record.

This year’s schedule will only be conference games: Carmel, @Leo, St. Laurence, Marian Catholic, @Providence, @Joliet Catholic and St. Joseph. The schedule is tough. Even so, the future is bright. Thirty-four freshman have come out for football. The school’s overall enrollment is on track to basically double in coming years. A new stadium, a commitment to football and increased enrollment will bring improvement. Basketball came ramming back to prominence; football is not far behind.

In addition to the new school, new stadium, new practice rules and new uniforms, DePaul Prep Athletics’ website is getting a makeover. Moving away from 8to18.com, assistant athletic Director Sammy Colon has been spearheading development of the revamped athletics portion of the school website, https://www.depaulprep.org/athletics/home.

The new website will exist directly on the school’s website and boast an updated interface with photos and easy reference to schedules.  il.8to18.com/DePaulPrep is still up but presumably will not be kept current. It is still valuable resource for finding results from previous season for those looking for blogging about high school sports, which is always important.

With football moved to the spring, I guess that makes this basketball season . . . . . . . Nice!

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Protests Turn Violent--The Next Morning.

The Loop was open this morning but hard to get to.

The police made all the cars exit Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton. Stockton Drive was open down to North Ave. LaSalle Street was blocked at Division Street by large city trucks. Clark, Wells and Franklin were blocked by trucks too. Halsted was open. I made my way over to Kinzie but the bridge was blocked by snow plows. I had to walk over the Kinzie Bridge.

All the bridges were up except the LaSalle Street bridge. I crossed and made my way east on Wacker to State and Lake, the apparent center of the mayhem last evening. There we broken windows here and there. The was some serious looting and destruction at the 7/11 at Lake and Dearborn. The shelves were bulled down. The instant lottery ticket machine was pushed over and vandalized. The ATM was smashed apart and liberated of its contents.

There were very few policemen around at 0830 plenty of board-up guys and spectators doing their work.

I don’t know what to make of this time in our lives. A global pandemic has killed over a one-hundred thousand people. Businesses have mostly been shuttered for two and a half months. A policeman murders a black man on video. There is rioting in the streets. And Donald Trump is president. What the hell is going on?

Who Else is Wondering About Basketball?

It happens about this time every year. The March playoffs fade. I spend time with my wife after not being around much in February and March. I go about other things long neglected. But by the middle of May, basketball returns to my mind. I put the dates of the Riverside Brookfield tournament, and the Ridgewood tournaments in my calendar. I fiddle with my cameras, charge the batteries, empty the memory cards. I get ready . . . and wait.

It happened this year too. I started to get excited. I was itching to start my basketball routine. I was curious about what was going on. How things were going to be different? I called a few people. I outlined an article and I started filling it in.

But in case you haven’t noticed, we have a global pandemic health emergency that has cost 100,000 lives in the United States. CNN held my attention when basketball would have otherwise. My day job tasks soaked up hour after hour that ordinarily would have been addressed by others, or not at all.

Nevertheless, basketball is the jealous mistress that demands my affections. And she must be obeyed.

June is ordinarily the time when high school coaches are allowed time with their teams. They practice and play in tournaments.

“Not gonna be a June,” DePaul Prep head coach Tom Kleinschmidt told me. “Ordinarily, this time of year I get anxious for some basketball too. I talk to Heidcamp, Livatino, Clancy. We talk basketball and get back into it.” When I talked to Coach Kleinschmidt early that evening in May, he was sitting on his couch watching television. I suspect any other year he would have been doing something else at that time of day.

The June “live period” for high school basketball is not going to happen. Chicago Sun-Times’ Michael O’Brien reported on May 19th that the National High School Sports Federation has come with a plan to phase back into high school sports. Here is a link to his piece. However, the IHSA has not yet published any plan or any guidelines to open high school sports as of the date of this writing.

“The NCAA and IHSA have suspended June live period dates as of now. So there have been no formal announcements made on June or July . . .. In addition to this, the NABC and NCAA met to consider postponing July live periods for AAU this week, but have not made a final determination,” DePaul Prep sophomore coach Sean Connor told me.

“I have been told there is potential for the NCAA to add live periods in the fall (August, September, October) for AAU teams to play, but this is just in discussion right now,” said Connor.

So June is a no-go. No R-B tournament. Coach Mroz at Ridgewood told me his tournaments will not proceed.

July is when the players are engaged in the bulk of the AAU tournaments. Tom Kleinschmidt did not think that college coaches would be attending these basketball tournaments so there wasn’t much reason to do them. However, I haven’t gotten any word yet on when any decision about the AAU tournaments will be made.

There is some hope that a “live period” may happen around the time of the girls live period in September. We could see some tournaments or one-day shootout style events for boys basketball in September. But that is largely going to depend on how high schools operate in the fall. There is likely to be some combination of in-school days and e-learning days. How sports fits into that is anybody’s guess.

When asked what’s going on in the Chicago Catholic League, Coach Kleinschmidt and DePaul Prep Athletic Director Patrick Mahoney, (son of the legendary St. Viator High School Dean of Men Patrick Mahoney), both told me there will be some changes in the Blue and White Divisions in CCL basketball. Some teams will be moving up and others moving down. More on that later.

Pat Mahoney said all is on schedule to open the DePaul Prep football season at the new DePaul Campus opposite Lane Tech. The new state-of-the-art football stadium will be ready. Exactly what the football season will look like is also yet to be determined but those decisions are months away.

I guess we will have to just wait and see what happens. In the meantime, still more of the same. Waiting.

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Outside Wrigley Field

I found myself driving by Wrigley Field so I stopped and took a few photos.

Stay at Home Order Protest at Thompson Center

On my way to drop off Dan downtown, I noticed police and media gathering in anticipation of a protest at the Thompson Center. I wasn’t covering the protest for any publication but it has been over a month since I photographed any people so I could not resist. I just wanted to shoot something. I went to the office, put on an N-95 mask, gloves and a hat. Then walked up there. I love a good protest. Some many different people to photograph.

This protest was pretty tame. Not a whole lot of action. But lots of honking horns. If never hear another horn honking it will be too soon.

I got some good shots. I learned a lot about how to shoot in the harsh midday sun. The good part is that was plenty of light. My Canon 7D works great in lots of light. Just as sharp as the 5D Mark IV. One also has a lot more options in Lightroom when there is plenty of light.

I got a very interesting shot of a couple at the southwest corner of Clark and Randolph. They were lite with direct sunlight from behind them on Clark Street and from in front of them by reflection off the Thompson Center windows. The high f-stop meant everything was in focus and there is very little depth perspective. I am fascinated by this one.

I hope you like the photos.

DePaul Prep v. Mather Senior Night

The end of this year’s basketball season was loaded with games for me and I simply did not not have the time to immediately process and post all the games I shot. I posted some photos and scores on Twitter during the DePaul Prep v. Mather game but could not give every game full treatment. I always try to shoot senior nights but I lost track of this one until now. Under the circumstances, I think it works about okay. Hopefully, you will have a little more of high school that is ending so unfortunately.

The exercise of processing the photos many weeks after taking them has proved instructive. This year I decided not to obsess on ISO and use as “auto-ISO” more than I every have. I did that that because it didn’t seem to effect the photos when posting on Twitter and Instagram.

But now, looking at these photos on a big monitor two months later, high ISO is soooooo grainy. We just gotta get better light in these gyms. I want to be shooting at no more than 1600 ISO. So you athletic directors out there better start budgeting for new and better lights in your gyms. Take a queue from the area arenas. Winstrust has great light. Allstate—very nice. Just saying.

As for these particular photos, l love the ones of the DePaul Prep coaches—some of my favorites of this season. I would post that photo in my website portfolio but it just seems too grainy. I guess I should try it out before deciding.

Congratulations to the DePaul Prep seniors. I have enjoyed watching and photographing Lance Mosley and DJ Shower over these past four years. Outstanding young men and basketball players. Hopefully this global pandemic won’t impact your college experiences too much.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Oh, ya. And the Rams won 63-25.

Day 28

We are four full weeks into this stay-at-home phase of this historic global pandemic, and I have not written a word about it in this blog. I started this blog as a place to post photographs, not a place to vent or opine on subjects I know little about. I am not a columnist with a gift for observation, analysis and the English language.

Since I haven’t been shooting events, I have only posted twice in the last 28 days. The first was on Day 1, photos from the DePaul Prep v. North Grand regional final basketball game a few days prior. The second was Day 15 when I posted previously unpublished photos from a DePaul Prep regional playoff baseball game last spring. I was missing baseball that day. I ran across the photos that I did not have time to process immediately after I took them. Then the relevancy of the photos was overtaken by events, so they never got posted. On April 4th, I thought people would like to see them.

Nevertheless, I have still been taking photos. I have started carrying my DSLR everywhere I go—which turns out to be very few places, basically just to the Jewel and to my office downtown.

Some of those photos are below. I generally don’t publish in black and white but somehow it seems appropriate now. The photo the bird is in color. I saw this strange looking bird among some pigeons sitting quieting in a corner of a building on LaSalle Street. I have never seen a bird like this before. It seems quite out of place—a duck sized bird with an unusually long beak. Perhaps someone knows what it is?

These photos are not particularly good. I am not a good street photographer, nor am I particularly trying to be. This global pandemic is requiring me to adjust and pushing me in an other direction.

I hope you like the photos.

DePaul Prep Drops Disney 13-1, a Year Ago

I was looking for some other photos and I noticed that I never processed the photos from the playoff game between DePaul Prep and Disney last spring. The DePaul Prep Rams eliminated Disney 13-1 in the IHSA regional playoff game.

Maybe this will help with some baseball withdrawal.

As I recall, I was using my 300mm, f5.6 lens. I typically only use this lens in bright light situations. This late afternoon game was not a good situation for this. I had to limit the shutter speed to 1/1000. Way to slow as one can tell from the blurry baseball shots. I hope you appreciate that I publish these photos despite them being such good evidence of just how crappy a photographer I am.

Nevertheless, there are some good ones. I hope you like them.

DePaul Prep Handles North-Grand 86-31 in Regional Semi-final

The DePaul Prep Rams defeated North-Grand 86-31 in the IHSA 3A Regional Semi-final matchup at DePaul on March 3, 2020.

My ability to timely post these photos right after the game was overtaken by events. The Election, the girls championship games, oh, and the global pandemic. It seems that we all will have a little time on our hands so I thought I would process these and extend the basketball season.

In these mismatch regional games, the coaches can go deep into the bench. That’s what happened against North-Grand. The bench proved more than adequate to the task. I venture a guess that the DePaul Prep Rams bench could beat most high school first teams.

So I hope you like the photos. I have a couple more game’s photos that did not get published. I will be posting those photos in coming days.

St. Ignatius Upsets DePaul Prep 56-54 in Sectional Semi-final

The St. Ignatius Wolfpack defeated the DePaul Prep Rams on Wednesday evening (March 11, 2020) to win a IHSA 3A sectional semi-final 56-54.

I did not post these photos right after the game. Frankly, I did not know what to write. It was an abrupt and unexpected end to the season, to the whole season, for everyone. The next day, the IHSA pulled the plug on high schools sports because of the global pandemic.

No more playoffs. No state championship tournaments. That’s it. Done. Over. Wait ‘til next year. I suppose it had to be.

I may, or may not, have more to write about the DePaul Prep season. It seems people actually read this idiot blog so perhaps I ought to be a little more circumspect with sharing my opinions. Plus, I don’t know what to write at the moment anyway. Kind of uncharted territory when the team has a great season, an historic season and one is disappointed just because you did not to win a state championship.

As for the photos, I have never liked the light at St. Ignatius. Not enough light and it is just too yellow in there. I can never get the white balance correct.

It was great to see the young St. Ignatius student photographer Luke Hales at the game. Luke is a high school senior and takes amazing photographs. You can see his photos from the same game here and judge for yourself. I have really enjoyed seeing his “in with the team” perspective. I look forward to seeing his photos in the future.

But I will write this. Thank you DePaul Prep. I hesitate to name names because I would have to far too many people to mention. I greatly enjoyed just coming to the games and watching excellent high school basketball. Thanks for the opportunity to get work on my craft, at your expense most of the time. Thank you for being so nice about it and making me feel welcome and appreciated.

In the words of our erstwhile leader and beloved Ram for life, Paul Chabura:

As always, Go Rams!

DePaul Prep Defeats Farragut to Win 6th Straight Regional

The DePaul Prep Rams defeated the Farragut Admirals 69-37 last night (March 6, 2020) at DePaul’s Tom Winiecki gym to win a sixth straight regional championship.

The game started close. The Rams opened an early lead but Farragut came stayed close. The game turned the Rams way for good after Farragut guard Malik Williams undercut DePaul’s Tyler Johnson. TY stole the ball and moved in for an open dunk. Williams pushed Johnson in the legs causing him to come down hard.

Johnson stayed in the game. DePaul never looked back.

Granted Farragut’s best player was injured and they only dressed 8 players but with DePaul’s relentless defense, it had to be just a matter of time before the Admirals lost wind in their sails.

69-37 was the final.

The sixth straight regional championship for DePaul Prep. Next for the Rams are the St. Ignatius Wolfpack at St. Ignatius at 7:00 p.m., on Wednesday. If victorious, a probable rematch with Fenwick. And then maybe another rematch with the Notre Dame Dons.

Gonna be tough.

Fremd Wins 4A State Championship over Lincoln Way West

The Fremd High School Vikings defeated the Lincoln Way West Warriors 58-47 on Saturday (March 7, 2020) at ISU’s Redbird area to win the IHSA 4A State Championship.

See a full story about the game at IL Preps Insider (click here). It was great to get to work again with Luke Druze from IL Preps Insider. No one knows more about girls high school basketball than him. I sat next to him during the third place games and he filled me in. We’re gonna have to do more of that next year.

It’s just a pleasure to go to ISU for the girls championships. The Redbird area has great light. The facilities are first class. The IHSA does a great job putting on the event. I really enjoyed it.

And the games were great. Simeon made a remarkable comeback against powerhouse Morton. I know this is cliche but I was sad that some teams had to lose. The Morton Potters were crushed by their loss. The Lincoln Way West Warriors were equally devastated by their loss to Fremd.

God willing I will be back next year. However, we are looking at a whole new format next year with all four classes on the same weekend and probably in Champaign.

Lane Tech Drops Oak Park River Forest 48-40

Lane Tech defeated Oak Park River Forest 48-40 at Lane on Wednesday (March 5, 2020) in the 4A IHSA regional semi-final. I was working at taking photos so I was not following the game as closely as I would like but—wow—the Indians played hard and defeated the favored Huskies.

Lane missed a lot of shots. But it seemed like they got every rebound. The Lane players are tough with very high energy motors. There is only one speed—fast. They imitate their high energy coach, Nick LoGalbo. I have seen a lot of teams this season. No team has played as hard as Lane did last night. I was impressed.

Going into the last few minutes, Lane had a ten point lead. When the Huskies went to a full court press and began to foul, sending the Indians to the free throw line, the Indians hit the free throws.

If a team gets a lead and hits its free throws at the end, it wins the game.

And another thing, there is no louder gym in the city. It almost hurts one’s ears. Everybody is high energy in that gym. It’s exhausting.

Well now they get Simeon on Friday in the Regional Championship. I wonder if Simeon knows what they’re in for.

St. Andrew's or Saint Andrew?

Wait. Is it St. Andrew’s or Saint Andrew?

This morning Mark Brown’s column in the Sun-Times raises this age-old question and throws it squarely into the newspaper for all to ponder and debate. (I have the app on my phone. The last time I actually bought a paper copy of the newspaper was when it published a photo I took at a Lane Tech basketball game. But I digress.) Okay, maybe it’s just me who thinks about this St. Andrew’s v. Saint Andrew question. But that’s the point of this blog. (Again, I digress. Twice in the in the same paragraph. Enough already.)

Mark Brown’s column this morning features his heartwarming tale about ditching his out-of-town friends in order to attend a fish fry at Chicago’s “St. Andrew’s” Catholic Church at Addison and Paulina with his charming and lovely wife.

You see, St. Andrew’s is the next parish over from my parish, St. Benedict at Irving and Leavitt. But its more than that. St. Andrew’s has always been something of rival for St. Benedict. I am not proud of this but, at times, St. Andrew’s has not been spoken of in the most charitable terms.

In my mind at least, that was mostly because St. Andrew’s has excellent basketball teams that usually vanquished our beloved Bengals and often did so with the conference championship on the line.

And there was that time when my friend Robert was politely asked to either shut up or leave the gym when he argued a referee’s call a little too loudly, and repeatedly. Robert deserved it so I guess so I can’t hold it against a whole Catholic church community but they did hire the bad ref making calls in St. Andrew’s favor. Just saying.

Plus, and this is more of an unspoken thing. At one time, St. Andrew’s was more of lace curtain Irish kind of place. I come from an Irish family in the German parish. It’s not that way anymore, but I learned that perception my parents, my father really. He grew up in St. Benedict in the early part of the last century and for some reason that attitude printed on me.

I understand there was a time when St. Benedict were predominantly German and St. Andrew was largely Irish. St. Benedict had German pastors and St. Andrew’s had Irish ones. (Although interestingly, the one-time German pastor of St. Benedict, Fr. Bob Heidenriech, was born and raised in St. Andrew’s. Go figure. Again I digress.) St. Andrew has always been a little fancier—lacy curtain Irish rather than the working class, policeman/bus driver kind of Irish in my German parish.

But that’s not true so much anymore. St. Benedict is plenty fancy. I don’t know how many Irish policemen live in the neighborhood anymore but I bet one can count them on one hand. I only know one.

It was only a few years ago that I learned that St. Andrew’s name is actually Saint Andrew Catholic Church. No apostrophe and no “s.” As long as I can remember it’s been St. Andrew’s. It seems Mark Brown thinks so too and wrote it that way in the paper.

I am guessing it’s a “Jewels” v. “Jewel” Chicago-speak kind of thing. It’s just something one says for no apparent reason. As far as I know, the proper name of the place has always been Saint Andrew.

St. Benedict has always been “St. Ben’s” or just “Ben’s.” Kind of a shorthand. Not sure that applies to St. Andrew’s. I don’t recall anybody ever calling it “Andrew’s” or “Andrew.” It’s always been St. Andrew’s.

I had to give up my hard feelings almost a decade ago when Saint Andrew joined the 47th Ward with the 2011 map. I can’t be thinking poorly of a parish in the Ward. That can’t be good politics.

Plus, and more importantly, it’s not right to harbor ill feeling toward our fellow Catholics simply because my St. Benedict teams have suffered humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat wrought by the merciless hands of grade school kids. I mean I don’t feel that way about Queen of Angels or St. Mathias. They are wonderful people, worthy of love and respect. We must keep telling ourselves that no matter how many defeats we suffer. It is the Christian way. And this is lent after all.

So it’s Saint Andrew Catholic Church. And I’m okay with that.

I wonder if Mark Brown has any idea of the St. Andrew’s/Saint Andrew divide. But probably he does, he wrote St. Andrew’s all over the paper.

DePaul Prep Falls to Riverdale 41-28 in 2A Super-sectional

The Riverdale High School Rams (28-3) defeated the DePaul Prep Rams 41-28 to win the 2A DeKalb Super-sectional Monday evening and earned a trip to the state tournament in Bloomington this weekend. 

The game was closer than the final score indicates. A low scoring first half, Riverdale 15, DePaul Prep 14, showcased the defensive talents of each team. 

First half turnovers limited DePaul’s shots. Riverdale’s size inside proved a challenge for DePaul. Despite finding openings in Riverdale’s defense, DePaul found it difficult to score.

“I thought defensively we were in pretty good shape. We only gave up 14 in the half,” said Riverdale head coach Jay Hatch who is making his fourth trip to the state tournament but this is the first for Riverdale.

“We weren’t really counting on [DePaul’s Trish Adams] stepping out and hitting 30 footers,” Hatch said. 

“Offensively we tried to get some more touches, more ball reversal, more movement,”

“Once we got inside, I think they chose to get out of the zone and we got some options for man-to-man.”

That seemed to be the difference for which DePaul Prep had no answer.  

“They were hitting shots and we weren’t. That was pretty much it in the second half,” said DePaul Prep’s 23-year-old first year head coach Sarah Zarymbski (Gordon Tech 2014 graduate).

The score got away from the DePaul with a few minutes left in the game when the Riverdale broke the press for some easy buckets and converted fouls into points at the charity stripe.

Riverdale’s senior center Sidney Garrett lead the Rams with 20 points. DePaul Prep’s senior forward Trish Adams lead the other Rams with 9 points. 

In an impressive start to coaching career, Zarymbski lead her Rams to their first sectional championship, in her first year. 

“We want to get back here next year. This isn’t enough,” said an emotional Zarymbski. Only losing four seniors players to graduation, DePaul Prep Rams may well be a power in 2A again next year.    

Riverdale is located in Port Byron, Illinois, about ten miles northeast of the Quad Cities. Port Byron has a population of 1,647. The IHSA website lists Riverdale enrollment at 327.5

DePaul College Prep, the former Gordon Tech High School, is located at Addison and California in Chicago. Gordon Tech first admitted girls in 2003. These Rams have enjoyed success over the years including five regional championships and an overall record of 217-198.

DePaul Prep Handles St. Ignatius 65-34

The DePaul Prep Rams rebounded Friday night (February 21, 2020) from consecutive CCL Blue losses to Fenwick and Loyola in a convincing defeat of the very good St. Ignatius Wolfpack 65-34 at DePaul Prep.

It’s been a rough couple weeks for the Rams with three Chicago Catholic League Blue division losses in a row. Even so, it’s only 5 losses on the season total but tough losses.

St. Ignatius ran into a buzz saw that cut them up in the first quarter. The Wolfpack worked to get up shots that did not fall. It was 16-2 at the end of the first quarter. The Rams wouldn’t let them back in. It seemed they enjoyed putting it on somebody for once. The Catholic League Blue schedule is brutal.

It was a special night at the Tom Winiecki Gym. Tom Winiecki, the former Gordon Tech football coach, was actually there. I have been in that gym a million times and I don’t remember seeing that many people in attendance. It was the 40th Anniversary of Gordon Tech’s 1980 state football championship. There was special half time commemoration and many members of that team were in the Gym for the celebration.

It was wonderful to see the student section break into Go Gordon Go (the Gordon Tech fight song) at the end of the celebration. One could see what it meant to the 1980 Rams. It was a special moment.

I would remiss not to mention that the girls team won the 2A Orr Sectional and will play in the Super-sectional championship on Monday evening at DeKalb High School. This is big. I believe this is Gordon/DePaul Prep’s first girls sectional championship. The girls’ head coach Sarah Zarymbski is only 23 years old but really has her girls dialed in. It must be her St. Benedict Elementary School training. We could be in Bloomington next week for the State Tournament. Just saying.

Go Rams.

DePaul Prep v. Loyola CCL Blue Showdown Preview

Frequent viewers to this channel will recall that I have this practice of breaking the basketball season into parts; early season Thanksgiving games; Christmas Tournament, Chicago Catholic League play and IHSA Playoffs.

We are at the end part three and the CCL title is on the line. The annual showdown against rival Loyola Academy Ramblers and then the pesky and always dangerous St. Ignatius Wolfpack.

Loyola comes into tonight’s game against DePaul Prep atop the Chicago Catholic League Blue Division with 24-4 overall record and 12-1 conference record, ranked #20 in Sun-Times Super 25. Our Rams are ranked at #19 with 21-4 overall and 11-2 in the CCL.

The Ramblers are always tough. Tom Livatino’s teams are skilled and disciplined. They always give me fits. I always have an pit in stomach in advance of those games, no matter the records, no matter the stakes. The stakes are high today. And so is my anxiety.

Pat Mahoney expressed confidence last night at the girls sectional semi-final victory stating that he thought DePaul would beat Loyola tonight. His confidence did little to relieve my trepidation. I pretty much have to think our Rams are the underdog.

It would be a huge win if the Rams can find a way to win, giving them a share of the CCL Blue title with Loyola and Fenwick (assuming a victory over St. Ignatius, you’ll have to indulge here). A victory would also give the DePaul Prep two CCL titles in a row.

The Chicago Catholic League Championship is what I like to see. My dad used to talk about winning the Catholic League. He attended the long-ago closed St. Phillip High School on the west side. St. Phillip won the CCL in 1945 after my dad graduated and while he was in Europe during WWII. Before that they won a few times and he talked about it a lot. His high school winning the Catholic League was a big deal for him. And so it has become with me.

The third part of the season basically ends tonight with a deciding game in the CCL Blue. The Sun-Times identified this game as a key game of the season in a season preview. For me, as accomplishments go, winning the Chicago Catholic League and then win the state championship are the top goals. It all builds up to tonight’s game.

Go Rams.

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