It’s almost that time again! The annual Lane Tech vs Whitney Young girls soccer rivalry game for the city championship title will be held Tuesday May 9th at Lane Tech stadium. This will be the first time in three years that Young and Lane will play each other in the semifinal game rather than the final; the winner will advance to the final to play either Jones or Payton on May 11th. The 2014 City Champion team was Whitney while the 2015 and 2016 award goes to Lane’s team which means the pressure is on for Whitney to redeem themselves and become champions once again. Both teams started their seasons out pretty rocky but as more and more games were played both teams became comfortable and confident with each other and progressed further in conference play. Lane tied Jones 2-2 in conference play which sent the high school teams into a frenzy; Jones had never been good in the past seasons and were only moved up to the Premier League this season. As Whitney prepared to play Jones the following week, freshman Mia Lisanti said “We really focused all week because we knew Jones would be hard competitors if they tied Lane, so going into the Jones game we wanted to play a hard game and give 100 percent the whole time.” The following week Young came out with a needed victory against Jones and were more confident heading into the next few games.

Freshman Mia Lisanti- Lane vs Young Conference Game

When the time came for the Whitney vs Lane conference game there was a hard fought battle with Lane coming out as the victors. “They really had a great game and we weren’t expecting them to be as good as they were” says Sophie Putrim ‘18. Whitney’s coach Spero Mandakas just accomplished his 100th win with the girls soccer program on Saturday and is positive about the semi finals this week. “We had our quarter final game vs Curie on Saturday and ended up winning 5-0,” says Carson Herman ‘19 “and at the end of the game Mandakas announced it was the 100th win he coached so I think that reminded us that we are a good team who has been around for a while and is here to stay.” The girls are excited for the rematch at Lane’s home field on Tuesday and hope to advance to the City finals. Senior Captain Sloane Kistenger says, “Process over outcome has been our motto all year and we have had come rough games and losses but we’ve worked every day and hope the outcome will be a victory in the semifinals and then later this week the City finals!” We wish Spero Mandakas and the girls soccer team luck in their game this week and hope for a win.