I’ve had so many great memories at Carroll over the years. I played soccer throughout high school but by far the greatest game of my high school career was this past year when we played Father Judge. 

Father Judge is always one of the most competitive teams in the Philadelphia Catholic League; every year they are in the championship. This past season was no exception Father Judge finished second in the Catholic League, only losing three games. 

Our season got off to a rough start, but later in the season we had a four game win streak going into our season finale against Father Judge. This game was of unparalleled importance. If we won we would have a playoff berth but if we lost our season would be over. 

Our team was really meshing well going into the game, but alot of us upperclassmen were not very optimistic. Our somewhat pessimistic attitude was well founded.  We had seen teams better than ourselves play and lose to Judge. The only upside to the game against Judge was we got to play at Carroll. 

The game was on a Friday night. Everyone was ready to play like it was their last game. For many of the seniors, we knew it very well might be. 

As the game started everyone was playing great. Before we knew it was 1-0 at halftime. They came out in the second half fully aware that we came to play. With five minutes left in the game, the score was 2-1. We were winning but many of our starters were fading fast. We didn’t make many substitutes in the game. We somehow withstood their offense for the last minutes of the game and even managed to score a third goal. 

It was the most exciting game I’ve ever played in. I just remember sitting on the bench after the game with fellow seniors Max Tyrell, Ryan Hoffman and Nick Malloy. We were all talking about the game and laughing. We were like fighters after a huge fight. We all worked hard and got the result we wanted. We were all tired and sore but it was an accomplished type of tired and sore.