A Little Delayed The Week That Was February 15 through February 21 2016

Our mild El Nino winter continued last week as our temps in the Chicago area hit the 50 and 60's Friday and Saturday. After two particularly harsh winter in 2014 and 2015, I am happy this has been a milder winter for us residents of Chicagoland.

And although there were less games last week with only boys upper school basketball and track going on, the intensity of every basketball game seemed ramped up with every game either being the end or potentially being the end of the season.

So despite being a four day school week with no classes on Monday Presidents Day, it was a busy week in sports.

Seniors and our coaches on 2016 Senior Day

Our last home JV and Varsity games were on Tuesday, February 16th. This was Senior Day for our Varsity team and after a quick JV victory in the first game, our large group of 9 senior players were honored before the Varsity game.

The outcome of the Varsity game versus Chicago Academy was in doubt late into the game and a stubborn Chicago Academy team stuck with our Raiders -- who looked a bit tired. In the end our Raiders pulled out a 47-39 win. We end the regular season with a 15-7 record.

The Varsity boys had the rest of the week off for games, as the focus of the week became the JV and F/S finishing their seasons.

Thursday was supposed to be a final trip for the F/S up to Waukegan to play Cristo Rey/ St. Martin. The Fresh/ Soph teams game earlier in the week vs. Ida Crown had been cancelled due to a gym conflict at Ida Crown. It seemed the F/S were jinxed last week as Cristo Rey called early Thursday and said they also had a gym conflict. But we quickly juggled our schedule here at North Shore and got the game moved to our gym. It was a hard fought 2 point game into the 4th quarter but Cristo Rey pulled a way for a 12 point win as the Raider shooting went cold. The Fresh/ Soph ended the year playing the most games ever for a Fresh/ Soph team -- eighteen -- and with a record of 8-10 (many with nail biter finishes) this was a memorable season.

Saturday our JV boys played in the annual ISL JV tournament hosted by U-High. We were seeded 2nd as we only had two losses in league and faced Latin in our opening semi-final game which we won 56-31 with a strong 2nd half. In the final we faced the team that caused our few blemishes to our record this year Northridge Prep. NRP got off to a quick lead and won 27-18 as the tough defense prevented the Raiders from scoring. The final record for the JV boys was 16-3.

Track at DeLaSalle

Saturday was a busy day for the Track team as they returned to DeLaSalle High School for their second meet. A slightly larger group was able to compete this week and the Raiders had some outstanding early season performances. In the 12 team meet the girls finished 6th and the boys finished 7th.

Raider boys varsity basketball enters the IHSA Regional tournament in the week ahead and the track team will split. Most of the track team will compete at the University of Chicago Friday night and a couple of folks will compete at Lewis University on Sunday. Most of the rest of our athletes will be getting ready for spring time!