By Maggie Deverux
Executive Sports Editor
The boys’ soccer team had the advantages of the homecoming atmosphere, filled stands and a better record to boot.  But it wasn’t enough, as the team lost their Friday game against Buffalo Grove, 1-0.
Both head coach Kurt Trenkle and players agree that they “should have been able to handle” Buffalo Grove. The Bison came into the game with only two wins in conference, while the knights came in 10-4-2.
“I wasn’t expecting much,” junior Bill Cooney said. “But they came out here to win and played harder than us.”
“We knew it was a game we should have won,” Trenkle said.
Trenkle blamed the loss partly on the team not playing its usual style of play.

While the team usually tends to get many players involved through passing and connecting person to person, this game they tended to dribble through the middle of Bison defense or tried for breakaways.
“We weren’t getting much success either way though,” Trenkle said. “I don’t think we were playing the way we are capable of playing.”
The boys’ also started out slow and sloppy in the first half according to Cooney. After a Bison goal, the Knights tried to improve their game, but they “just couldn’t get [the ball] in.”
“We picked it up after we needed a goal, but it was too late,” Cooney said.
Although a homecoming loss was disappointing to the team, the loss doesn’t affect them in the standings or for regional play. The boys, now 11-6-2, start regionals beginning this week. Trenkle seems confident his team is ready for the playoffs, and can use this game only to improve.
“We have an opponent first round that we can beat,” Trenkle said. “And so I think we can use this as a learning proccess to spend 80 minutes of solid soccer instead of 70.”