The Senior Boys Soccer Team at Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School have been crowned the D10 Champs.
Following an extremely successful season, the team defeated John F. Ross in a nail biter to take the title.
“We played Ross in the finals and it was our toughest challenge yet. We got off to a strong start with an early goal. Ross rebounded with an equalizer and shortly followed up with another goal to take a 2-1 lead. We found ourselves down for nearly the rest of the game,” shared Matthew Quirk, coach of the team. “The boys were getting frustrated with Ross' strong possession game and were looking for a break to get us back in the game. In the 70th minute, there was a beautiful cross and Patrick Brousseau headed the ball in to tie the game 2-2. This gave our team some much needed energy to finish strong. Then, in the 76th minute, Gianluca Bianchi scored the game winning goal. We were able to hold off Ross' final last-minute efforts to take the championship. The boys were resilient, which led to our victory.”
Following a soccer-less year, the D10 season returned with some adjustments seeing the teams play in a tournament style challenge rather than a traditional season.
“The season was a 1-day tournament with each team playing 3 games. In the season we had a strong performance with a 2-1 record. The next tournament day consisted of the quarterfinals and semifinals. We won the quarterfinals 4-1 and won the semifinals 7-1. The championship game was the following week. In total we played 6 games to take the D10 championship,” he explained.
Although for all but two returning players, the tournament style challenge is really all they know for in school soccer.
Grade 11 student, Patrick Brousseau, a Cambridge U17 Boys OPDL Soccer Team player and returning Bishop Macdonell soccer player experienced one D10 season with the team prior to this. However, it’ll be hard to top this most recent win in future years.
“Winning D10 was an amazing feeling. One of my favourite memories of high school so far has to be when the final whistle blew, and everyone ran together and started going crazy. It felt great that we had won the tournament, and it felt great that we had made our school proud,” he explained. “It didn’t always look like we were going to win. Once we went down 2-1, it looked like there was no way back. Ross was looking very strong, and we weren’t playing our best. But the play that sparked the comeback was when a cross was played to me and I scored to tie the game. It was a beautiful cross, all I had to do was place it in the net. After that, our whole team was full of energy and we just attacked Ross for the last ten minutes. The final blow came with only minutes left, and we had put ourselves in the lead. Those last few minutes after we scored had to have been the longest three minutes of my life. But we held on to win D10!”
Returning to the team alongside Brousseau was Gianluca Bianchi, who scored the game winner.
“Patrick Brousseau and Gianluca Bianchi are returning players and their experience helped compose the team at times,” shared the coach.
Beyond the vets, Quirk is quick to credit a deep roster to the success they had this season.
“I have to say that everyone did an amazing job this season - it was truly a team effort,” he said. “Our well-rounded team was really the key element that gave us so much success at the D10 level. Our offensive game was strong and allowed us to score 18 goals in 6 games. We were also solid defensively, which made it hard for our opponents to have much success. Our keeper, Viktor Szucs, made some incredible saves, throughout our D10 season, to give us opportunities to stay in games.”
Next steps for the team? CWOSSA!
“Now that we've won D10, we will start preparing for CWOSSA in the spring. I don't think anything has been finalized yet, but the boys are really excited to compete at the next level,” said Quirk.
“I feel like our team is filled with talented players, and I feel like since we have a long time until CWOSSA, we are only going to get better. It’ll take some hard work, but I feel like we can really challenge for the title in the Spring,” added Brousseau, verifying Quirk’s sentiment.
All in all, Quirk couldn’t have asked for a better team for their return.
“I'm really proud of how the boys played throughout the season. They really came together as a group and found a way to effectively play together. Although we were a competitive team, the boys had a lot of fun throughout the season. It has been a pleasure coaching them and I'm excited for CWOSSA in the spring,” he said.
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