MacKenzie Guynn Two weeks ago, Latin had one of its most exciting weeks. The Cubs had just broken the 108-year curse with a World Series win in a nail biting game that kept most of us awake. The girls’ volleyball team advanced to super-sectionals, and later state, an achievement that no Latin volleyball team has done before. But volleyball wasn’t the only team to set new records for Latin athletics. The boys’ soccer team’s state semi-final game was on that Friday. Just after the Cubs parade ended, as many as fifty Latin students filed into three fan buses and made their way to Hoffman Estates where they continued to cheer on the soccer team through a grueling 90 minutes of regulation before entering 40 minutes of overtime. We were the obvious underdogs going into this game considering we were paired with Benet, the number one seed for 2A schools. According to Ben Sibul, a key player in both State games, this fact loomed over many of the players’ minds, but they “were going in with a winning mentality.” They vowed to “try [their] hardest during each game, and just go along for the ride, since it was just a fun experience.” After the score remained tied at 0-0 going into the second overtime period, the team rallied together, preparing themselves for the last twenty minutes of the game. In those last twenty minutes, Ike Baldwin scored the winning goal, putting Latin into the state finals. Ben Sibul elaborated about how “winning a hard fought game like that showed us that we had what it took to go deep into games and that we had the mental toughness to win these types of playoff games.“ The team went into the state finals game against Mount Carmel on Saturday with this mindset. Mount Carmel had a 1-0 lead at halftime, giving us a run for our money. At half-time, in order to rally just like they did the day before, “Alden gave [them] some motivation, and [they] discussed how [they] were the fitter team and that if [they] could fight to the last minute, we would come away with the win.” In the second half, Ike Baldwin scored to tie the game at 1-1. The game then went into overtime, in which Mount Carmel received multiple fouls. One of those fouls gave us the opportunity for a penalty kick, taken by John Schuler. The penalty kick resulted in another goal for Latin, and after a few more minutes of playing, Jonah Schenk scored the final goal of the game, giving Latin a state-championship title with a win of 3-1. In just one week history was made… three times. The Chicago Cubs broke a curse, causing the seventh largest gathering in human history to occur. And, on a more local scale, the Latin girls’ volleyball team went to state and the boys’ varsity soccer team became state champions in the 2A division for the first time in Latin athletic history. The team, and the Latin community, is hopeful that this will become a new tradition of sorts, “but losing our seniors, who led us through the season, will definitely make it tough,” said Ben Sibul. If anything, this season has instilled hope for the future of Latin athletics.  ]]>