One thing about boys soccer: once it starts, it’s over seemingly in the blink of an eye.
We’re in the home stretch of the regular season for suburban conference play, the Catholic League and other private schools.
The five-round Public League soccer tournament begins with round robin play Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week.
Other critical dates: the quarterfinals are on Columbus Day, Oct. 10, at Lane, with matches set to be played at 9 and 11 a.m., followed by an afternoon session for the other bracket, with games scheduled for 1 and 3 p.m, respectively.
The semifinals are 5 and 7 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 12, at Lane. The championship match is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 15, at 4 p.m., at the University of Chicago.
As expected, Mather is the top-seed. The Rangers are the only team in the Sun-Times’ list of others, the teams unofficially ranked 11-20 in our weekly poll.
In the round robin format, eight groups of three teams will battle for the right to advance to the quarterfinals. There will be no overtime sessions in the early rounds.
The best first day match up appears to be Washington, led by arguably the city’s best player, Miseal Martinez, who travel to Little Village.