On February 1st, Jesuit took to Davis High School for a 7:00 game start. This was a very important game: if Jesuit won, they would be Delta League champions, and if Jesuit tied or lost, the issue would still be undecided with only two regular season games after this one. The game had a normal, safe start with Jesuit making some inroads early on, and raising their level of performance from their last several games. In just the 10th minute, Chris Meyers slowly and steadily dribbled up the field a bit with Elijah Beverley sneaking up and around him looking for a pass. Chris let off a nice pass to his right, perhaps accidentally, and there was Beverley to sting the ball in lower right corner, cleanly. The Jesuit efforts were looking positive as they kept trying to slowly hammer away at the Davis defense. The same pattern continued for a while, with the addition of Davis finally starting to strike back a bit with their own offense. And then, in the 30th minute, Luke Bone won the positioning a little bit outside the penalty box on the left side and solidly tapped in another one out of the keeper’s reach low on his left side. Jesuit was now filled with inspiration and was edging closer to winning the game. For the rest of the second half, the visiting team did mostly good things and continued to play solidly, with a few dumb mistakes to add to the excitement.

Half Jesuit 2-0 Davis

Jesuit started the second half with similar quality to the previous 40 minutes, but with a less clear game-plan. In the 50th minute, the game took a dangerous turn when Davis got a free kick at the halfway point of the field and sent a fully-stocked offense into the box. When the whistle was blown, a Davis player took a giant kick that bounced once in the penalty box and then a little over the head of goalkeeper Frankie Turnbull. Nobody would’ve thought it, but it was now once again a tight and competitive game with a full 30 minutes left to play. However, Jesuit didn’t get too discouraged, or become too timid, because of this sudden Davis move. They continued to set up cunning attacks with crazy speed and continued to defend, a little dangerously at some points, but well enough. The home team got another long free kick, seemingly Jesuit’s kryptonite, but in a miraculous sequence of events it managed to stay out of the Jesuit goal, going off the inside of the post and seemingly right off the goal line. They had some other dangerous attacks and testy set plays, and Jesuit got nervous on some of their defense but they managed to keep any more goals out. At the end of the game, Jesuit resorted to keeping the ball contained in the corner off corner kicks and then, in a seemingly endless extra time period, evaded a few more crazy last-ditch offensive Davis efforts. But the final whistle was blown soon enough, and Jesuit reigned victorious, becoming league champions for the 30th year in a row. The last time they lost out on being champions was 1988. This game was one for the history books.

Final: Jesuit 2-1 over Davis

submitted by Gage Biery ‘20