On Friday, before students go home to study for semester exams, the school came together to recognize the winter sports teams and have some fun before Christmas break.
(Rally took place after press time)
After Christmas in our Community, the winter sports rally was held place in Sullivan Gym. The rally will acknowledge student athletes in the basketball, hockey, swimming, wrestling, and bowling program. It will also feature a hilarious student-made video and opportunities for students and teachers to compete head-to-head. Like all sports rallies at St. Ignatius, the head coaches of the various sports programs will be allowed to speak and preview their up-upcoming season. Students can expect to hear some stirring speeches to drum up excitement for the teams.
Some students will also take this time to showcase a video they made with the theme of winter sports. Senior Chris Larsen, who worked on the project, said, “It was a great time. We managed to feature most of the players and essentially every coach in the video.” It sound like the video will be fun for the whole school to enjoy.
One thing that is different about this year’s rally will be the absence of the student-faculty basketball game. Instead this will take place in the spring.
But according to Mr. David Sabol, there will still be some form of competition between students and faculty. The rally will be a great opportunity for the school to close out the first semester before exams.
Neeko Melendez fires away from deep in 72-54 loss to Solon
The season has only just begun for the Wildcats but we have already seen what seems to be two different Wildcat teams. The Wildcats are off to 3-2 start to their season with losses to Cornerstone Christian, a solid div. IV team, and the highly ranked Solon Comets who proved they are an outstanding basketball team in their fourth victory of the season defeating the Wildcats 72-54. The Wildcats proved themselves capable of keeping up with the high class teams after defeating Cleveland Heights in a huge victory for the Cats.
Taking a look back at their loss a week ago to Solon: Yes, Solon is an outstanding basketball team. Led by Sincere Carry, and three other returning starters, Tony DeCesare and his Comets have something to prove after their District Final loss last season. This season’s Comets are set up by an elite set of guard players. These guards caused nightmares for the Wildcats last Saturday Night. Sincere Carry had 14 points at halftime as the Comets took a 20 point lead at halftime. Jon Barnes scored the first 7 points for the Wildcats and looked to be heading towards another dominating night just as he did at Cleveland Heights. After a 20 point halftime deficit, Wildcat shooters began to get desperate. After a short stint of hope to start the second half, the Wildcats were never able to catch back up with the Comets. The Wildcats played Saturday night’s game in very ill conditions with multiple players feeling extremely under the weather and it undoubtedly showed. Coach Becker’s Wildcats are a fast pace team that should have been able to keep up with a speedy Solon Comets team much better than they did a week ago, even without the athleticism of injured Chase Toppin. A completely healthy and healed Wildcat team would be able to put up a fight against the Comets.
Kevin Davet vs. Solon
What to watch for
A fully healthy team: It’s something the Wildcats have been looking for since week one, and a team that should be back this Saturday vs. Canton McKinley. Chase Toppin is set to make his return after missing the past week of games nursing an ankle injury. Chase is key to the uptempo play of the Wildcats, someone who would have been very valuable against the Comets.
Senior leaders: Jon Barnes, Neeko Melendez and Dom Dinunzio are unquestionably three senior leaders that will have to keep up impressive play for this year’s team to be successful. We saw a peak of what type of play these three players can create against Cleveland Heights. When these three guys draw attention to themselves it opens up the rest of the floor for the rest of the team. The key for this team to be successful is finding a rotation that works, and finding consistent play that does not allow an extreme off game like against Solon. When these three players have a solid game, the team will have a solid game. These three players need to step up and take charge as the Wildcat schedule continues to heat up.
Holiday season slate: The Wildcats are slated to play five games before classes resume January 8th making one fun holiday vacation for Wildcat Basketball. It all kicks off Saturday night as Canton McKinley comes to Sullivan gym for a 7pm matchup. Last year the Wildcats traveled to Canton where Matt Davet orchestrated an amazing fourth quarter comeback which fell just short of victory. The Wildcats will look to come back from their loss at Solon with a hard victory in Sullivan Gym. Following Christmas the Cats will be back for another home game as Warren Harding comes to Sullivan Gym. The New Year’s Eve tradition will continue this year, this time in Akron as the Wildcats will take on an improved St. Vincent-St. Mary back at the home of Lebron James. University School will make a trip from the east side for CYO night at Sullivan gym on Jan. 5th.
The Wildcats will finish off their winter break schedule the next day with a trip down to Erie to take on Erie Cathedral Prep who are off to a 4-0 start for their season.
The tough stretch: The Wildcats will be put to the test in a stretch of four difficult games kicked off with a matchup at John Carroll University against Westerville South who took the Div. I State Championship back home to Columbus in 2016. The first matchup with St. Edwards will be at Sullivan gym January 20th. Arguably the best team in Northeast Ohio, Garfield Heights, comes to Sullivan Gym January 26. Garfield has been tested by Shaker Heights and Benedictine so far this season. The Wildcats look to be another team to challenge a very talented Garfield Heights team. Following the Garfield Height, Cleveland Central Catholic will stop by Sullivan gymnasium concluding a rough stretch of games in the month of January.
Whether or not the Wildcats will be able to keep up with teams in this long stretch of tough games depends on which basketball team decides to show up. If we see the fast paced offense, speedy, athletic Wildcats we will see some really good high school basketball over the next month or so. Now that the Wildcats are getting fully healthy, the rest of December and January should be interesting.
This is an exciting time to be part of Wildcat hockey. Saint Ignatius has two teams this year, a Prep team and a Varsity Blue team, which will both be among the top 15-20 teams in the state. Both take on all comers and play very challenging schedules. Coach O’Rourke says, “We aim to represent the school and the state well in all of our travels. On the ice, they have multiple goals – to win state championships and advance as many players to college and junior hockey as possible.”
Off the ice, the hockey teams attend Chapel sessions together each week, do service together, and attend team parties (usually to watch an NHL game or the Olympics) together. Coach says, “All in all we hope
to give all of the players the best Ignatian experience we possibly can. Usually that’s fairly easy when you are fortunate enough to have a group of nice, hard-working boys, and luckily we do.”
Recently, the Ice Cats just won the Holy War, a 2-0 victory over St. Edward on Saturday at Brooklyn. Bain Kurtz scored both goals. The hockey team has a 5-2 record start to the season. The hockey team will continue to be traveling, heading to Michigan and numerous other out of state games.
Led by two captains Bain Kurtz ‘18 and Michael Mcaffery ‘18, the Ice Cats plan to make it a great season of hockey and to go toward that big goal of winning their third straight Division 1 OHSAA State Championship.
5. Christmas Eve and Other Stories – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
As Cleveland is the city of Rock n’ Roll, it’d be borderline sacrilegious to leave TransSiberian Orchestra out of this list. TSO has been a rock staple of Christmas since this album debuted in 1996. Today, the group tours across the nation during the holiday season to bring everyone a Rock n’ roll Christmas.
4. A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra
This Christmas album combines popular jazz and swing with traditional Christmas style. As Sinatra’s first full-length Christmas album, Sinatra covered many classic songs in a new way, giving new life into forgotten songs. The original album has had several
3. A Pentatonix Christmas – Pentatonix
As Pentatonix’s third Christmas album and their fifth studio album, this album appeared at the top of multiple charts and went Platinum. This a cappella group has found its success in Christmas music, especially with songs portraying the biblical messages of Christmas.
2. White Christmas – Bing Crosby
re-releases and reissues as recently as 2010. Bing Crosby’s Christmas compilation album has gone through multiple iterations, especially as it has been continuously produced through the vinyl, CD, and digital eras. With songs such as “Mele Kalikimaka” – the Hawaiian Christmas song, that truly gives island vibes to the cold and (sometimes) snowy streets of Cleveland, Ohio – and “Silent Night”, Crosby blends (then-current) pop-culture with biblical teachings of Christ-
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas – Vince Guaraldi Trio
Composed as the soundtrack for the A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, the Vince Guaraldi Trio mixed elements of jazz and traditional Christmas music. Having been certified as a Multi-Platinum Record by the RIAA, songs from this album have graced ears every holiday season. Although a very limited selection of tracks from the album are played over the radio, after talking to peer consultants, we came to the conclusion that this album was the album that could be repeated the most before becoming a nuisance; thus, earning the #1 spot.
Not much can be said about this film that hasn’t already, so I’ll be brief. This film is
a fantastic slapstick comedy, with hilarious supporting performances from Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the “Wet Bandits,” and one of the best child performances out there from MacCaulay Culkin. If by some chance you have managed to not have seen this by now, I can’t stress how much fun this film is, and you can probably catch it on TV within the next few days.
4. Black Christmas (1974)
Of all the films on this list, this one is certainly unheard of to most of you. While you might not think of Christmas as a particularly scary time of year, you’ll get a new appreciation for it after seeing the film that is arguably responsible for the “Slasher” genre. If you enjoy the original Halloween, you will love this movie as it is the film that directly inspired John Carpenter’s classic. Due to its Canadian origins, and early 70’s release, this film has largely become lost to modern audiences, but if by some chance you find a way to watch it, definitely check it out.
3. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Without a doubt this is the funniest film on this list, in large part thanks to Chevy Chase’s iconic performance as on the verge of a mental breakdown father, Clark Griswold, and Randy Quaid’s equally memorable role as the lovably inept cousin Eddie. This film takes all of the Christmas movie tropes, and sends them up with National Lampoon’s unique, darkly cynical style of humor, which you can also see in films like Animal House, making for an endlessly rewatchable.
2. Gremlins
An inventive monster movie with heart. Gremlins is a surprisingly dark Christ- mas movie, and in my mind that’s a good thing. It has laughs, scares, and amazing practical effects, all surrounded in an atmosphere of holiday cheer.
1. Die Hard
What says Christmas more than terrorists taking over a high rise office building? This 1988 film is not only the epitome of action films, but also of Holiday movies. The main problem with the vast majority of Christmas films is that they don’t take time to come up with an interesting plot or characters, and rather rely upon your holiday spirit to get you through the film. Die Hard not only has one of the greatest action heroes of all time in Bruce Willis’ John Mcclane, but also has an inventive plot which established most of what we now consider to be action movie tropes. I don’t know about you, but “Now I have a machine gun ho, ho, ho” is the moment that first comes to my mind when I think of Christmas in film.
The Saint Ignatius swim Cats did not return from the Canton McKinley Natatorium with the coveted state title trophy in their hands on Saturday, February 25th, but they still put forth a valiant 2nd place effort that would’ve won the gold in many other states. The Saint Xavier Bombers had unsurprisingly won the state meet once again as they have all but one year since 1998. But Stephen Buckles ‘19 has a message for them; “We’ll be back.”
Head Coach Mike Lehto has far beyond proven his effect on the boys after winning the school his third state runner-up as head coach. With a wide range of talent returning in senior diver Alex Claus, a top ten state finisher last year, as well as state qualifiers Cian O’Haimhirgin ‘18 and Nick Hong, the future is bright for the hard working swimming and diving Cats the winter.
But you can also count on the freshman to put out strong performances this year, according to Captain Nick Hong. “The team’s greatest strengths this year is the strong freshman class.” Tyler Hong ‘21 has proven this true with his breaking of the freshmen 200 individual medley record earlier this year.
Hong remarked that the team is particularly large this year, with over thirty five athletes, but leading them will certainly not be a challenge under enthusiastic Captain John Libertine ‘19. Libertine hopes for all of the relay teams to qualify for states this year.
With a handful of meets in their pocket at this point in the season, the swimmers have shown promise since their big meet against Toledo Saint Francis by responding with a second place finish at the Solon Relays the following day.
The swim cats will be back out on the hunt for the gold this year in another exciting season.
As the weather turns colder and Christmas music plays on the radio, the 81st installment of the Rini Family Christmas Food Drive starts to take shape as well. The food drive with the slogan of “4 cans, 4 dollars, 4 others” will help to feed families in the greater Cleveland community this Christmas and provide holiday cheer to those who need it most.
The planning done by the Christmas Food Drive core team starts long before Christmas carols play on the radio. Members on the core team are broken up into individual committees set to accomplish tasks such as getting and making boxes, counting the food and money, homeroom heralds and publicity, and the map makers. Each member of the team has to do their part to ensure the whole food drive goes off without a hitch. On the Christmas on campus day, all the teams come together to make all the baskets and prepare them to be delivered the next day. Finally ending on Saturday, there is a drive-through type assembly line in the chapel lot for anyone to pick up a basket and take it to a family.
Leader of the box committee, Brad Anderson ‘18 says, “Christmas food drive delivery day is the best day of the year. It’s a great time because the Christmas Food Drive brings the whole community closer together more than any other event on campus.” The delivery day is where others are invited and encouraged to come to the chapel parking lot, pick up a basket and a map, and then take it to a family in need.
Last Saturday, December 16, the baskets were delivered by a plethora of students and volunteers, all working together to bring Christmas to those less fortunate.
From Barbies to your beloved bedroom Nerf hoops, no child went presentless under the watch of the Student Senate with their annual Patel Christmas Toy Drive. Providing gifts for kids of less fortunate families, Student Senate saw to it that nearly 1,000 kids receive a basic childhood Christmastime necessity on Friday, December 15th. About 700 gifts were presented to children in inner city schools, with the remaining ones going to children’s shelters or the Salvation Army.
But the goodwill does not stop with students dropping their gifts off at the high school; the experience of handing out gifts to the less fortunate gradeschoolers can be a moving experience.
“At the end of the day, we are able to make kids happy in a very unique way and make their Christmases a bit better than they might otherwise be,” remarks Junior Class President Dillion Gallagher. “It makes me realize that I’m very blessed, primarily because I’m able to help these kids have a good Christmas.”
Mr. Kelley, who moderates the drive, has not seen a lack in the student body’s benevolence. “I am always impressed with the generous spirit of students here at our school. I think that the virtue of generosity is learned well here.”
A thank you goes out to the Saint Ignatius student body, which brought gifts ranging from $5 to $10 over the past few weeks. Additionally, none of this would have been possible without the aid of Mr. Rakesh Patel ‘96, who donates $2,000 annually to provide wrapping paper, photos, and Santa suits for the event. Mr. Rakesh Patel made this donation in honor of his father, Shirish Patel, after whom the drive has been named, and has since prevented the spread of false heresies about ol’ Saint Nick.
So as you enjoy this Christmas break, do not frown over not getting the iPhone X (or whatever the hottest, most recent, unchanged piece of technology is this year); be grateful that you had something under that tree to begin with.
Mr. Walters ‘09 and students from Tanza- nia pose in front of St. Malachi’s Church
By CHRIS BISHOP ‘18
In the month of December, the Saint Ignatius community is blessed to receive students from St. Peter Claver High School in Dodoma, Tanzania. Saint Ignatius has had previous mission trips visit Tanzania. I recently had the pleasure to talk to Mr. Wilhems, project coordinator, and a couple students, Macrina and Peter.
Mr. Wilhems had no previous ties to the school; however, Saint Ignatius had ties for three years. Ignatius faculty went there for three years, and it is the second year for St. Peter students coming here.
The students are here for fourteen days. Weekends are for the host families. One weekend, the students are visiting the Kalahari Water Park. Saint Ignatius has ten days for the students, just a few of the activities the students partake in are shadowing schools, such as Toledo St. John and Walsh Jesuit, touring Cleveland, and local service in Ohio City.
I asked the students, Macrina and Peter what the best part of America was, and they both agreed that America was great and they appreciated the openness of the people. They also appreciated the way the whole city backed the Cavaliers when they attended the game against the Kings.
Next I asked what was the biggest difference between America and Tanzania. Peter and Macrina both agreed that they appreciate how the schools are connected, referring to the Jesuit relationship of Saint Ignatius, Walsh Jesuit and St. John’s. They also said that the teachers are much more serious in Tanzania, and there is very little room for joking around in the classroom.
Finally, I asked what they will take back to Tanzania from this experience. Macrina said she wanted to take back the appreciation for the arts and singing, which Tanzania lacks. Peter, as the student body president, wanted to bring more clubs back to his high school. He said he liked how the students have a role in the school. On a lighter side, both liked American foods such as pancakes and McNuggets.
All of the student visitors are stepping into a new world by coming to America. With a great itinerary, it should be a good time for the students. Peter and Macrina are both excited to be here, but can not wait to go back with this experience.
When the clocks strikes twelve on Halloween night, it means it is time for the annual debate: when does one “legally” play Christmas music? Every year this question is brought up, causing heated arguments that have broken friendships and families. However, no clear answer has ever been decided. During November? During Thanksgiving break? The day after Thanksgiving? December 1st? So when is it socially acceptable to listen your favorite songs for the best time of the year?
It is no question that Christmas music is the best genre. All singers and bands have their own covers and Christmas albums, contributing to the seasonal festivities. Thus, one is not missing out by listening to Christmas music, because both the songs and the artists are so diverse that anyone can be pleased. This is what makes Christmas music so good— its versatility and adaptability. So why not listen to it sooner rather than later? As a result, I believe that Christmas music should be introduced during the week of Thanksgiving break. After a slow introduction, Christmas music will then get spotlighted after Thanksgiving. This gives everyone more time to listen to the best music, and so that people do not have to feel that they missed out and wish they listened to more Christmas music before it was too late.
However, Bennett Kavlick ‘18 disagrees. “It should be started December 1st. Over three weeks is perfectly enough time to enjoy it. If you overdo something, it loses its value.”
As for the people that think listening to Christmas music before or during Thanksgiving takes away from it, I simply disagree. If we wait to play Christmas music for after Thanksgiving, that gives us only slightly over three weeks to listen to the best music of the year. That simply does not give enough time to listen.
This song is an absolute sleeper. A young Justin Timberlake brings this song to the next level, making the song uplifting and jolly.
4. Do They Know It’s Christmas Time? – Band Aid
This song is the epitome of the 80s. Featuring the great Phil Collins and Bono, the band highlights the most popular singers at the time, forming their own super team to create a holiday song to remind us of those in need, and they completely accomplished just that.
3. Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town – Bruce Springsteen
It is wonderful to hear The Boss himself cover one of the original Christmas songs, and to say he nailed it is to say the least. In addition, Clarence Clemons destroys it on the sax, adding the final touch to this instant classic.
2. All I Want for Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey
This song is spectacular, we all know it…
1. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
The reason I put this ahead of Mariah Carey is that I receive the same vibe from both songs, however Darlene Love does this 30 years earlier. This is totally unexpected for the time, and changes the game to come.
