Cahillites Take the 2010 Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame Pre-Season High School Tournament
Parkwood Youth Organization, August 28, 2010: It was a gorgeous day to kick of the pre-season soccer schedule, and under bright blue skies, the boys who sported the purple and white jerseys ultimately walked off the pitch yesterday as champions of the round robin tournament. But even though the squad from Roman Catholic hoisted a stylish trophy indicating their championship performance at the 2nd annual Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer (SEPA) Hall of Fame pre-season tournament, asking anyone of the varsity team members or coaches afterwards if they were pleased with their overall performance raised some collective eyebrows. "We had moments where it was evident that our hard work at training camp had paid off" said senior captain, Billy Goebig. "But for all the great things we did in the first two matches, to see it blow up in our faces during third match was hard to take" he concluded.
After shutting down Bensalem High School 2 nil in the first match of the day behind a stellar defense and a feisty Chris Woods in the net, the Cahillites stepped up to a challenge presented by a well coached and talented Chestnut Hill Academy. With a spring in their step and showing a new found scoring touch, the Roman boys quickly jumped out to a three nil first half lead. CHA managed to cut the lead with a second half goal, but with a noticeable poise and confidence, the team was able to shut down CHA's driving attack to put a second victory on the board to all but assure Roman the tournament title.
"I think going in to the third match, we thought too much of our early efforts and just got big headed. Whatever it was, we lost our way and it simply can't happen again" said Nico Delgado, a goal scorer on the day and one of the team's three senior captains. Delgado was referring to a lack luster effort against the 2009 Public League Champions, George Washington High School in which the public league team posted a 4-1 result against the purple and gold. "You have to respect what they did last year" Delgado said of GW, "we didn't bring a good or smart effort out to the field and better teams will make you pay and they (GW) did just that."
In summarizing the tournament, Head Coach Ray DeStephanis remarked "it's always nice to walk out as a champion because we did some really good things out there today. He concluded by saying, "in the end, it's a pre-season tournament and all the schools here are still trying to find their identities as a team… so we will put the trophy away and get right back to work at training camp. We all want to get to the next level and we know we can achieve it with continuous hard work."