DePaul Prep Handles Hyde Park 60-28; St. Ignatius Clips Benet 69-65

Went to Tom Winiecki to see the DePaul Prep Rams first home game of the year against Hyde Park then decided to hurry down to St. Ignatius to catch the end of the St. Ignatius v. Benet. Glad I did. The Rams handled a good Hyde Park squad and #22 St. Ignatius upset #2 Benet.

I was a little late making it to Gordon for the game. I got there with a minute left in the half and the Rams lead the Thunderbirds 33-11. The Rams defense was locked in.

Rykan Woo lead the Rams with 17. Lashaun Porter had 10. It was good to see Rams’ transfer Zion Lee put some points on the board. He is fitting into his role the line-up and adding some points. He finished with 8.

Despite the lopsided scores in the Battle of the Bridge, the Rams didn’t exactly look like they were hitting on all cylinders. They looked pretty good today. Defense, offense. I bet they could play special teams too if need be. It was good to see this new team back in the Tom Winiecki Gym playing fast when need be and installing the shut down defense too.

The game went quick so I quickly went down to St. Ignatius to catch the end of the St. Ignatius v. Benet game.

I arrived at the Gentile Gym with a minute left in the third quarter with the Wolfpack trailing Benet 48-49. It was back-and-forth and back-and-forth.

Tied at 59 each at 1:29, Benet grabbed a one point lead. St. Ignatius’ senior guard Nico Harris dropped in a three, giving the Wolfpack a two point lead. Rebounds and free throws would seal the upset victory over the very good #2 ranked Benet Redwings.

I know it’s early. Benet is very good; some say a #1B ranking. This game was more about how good St. Ignatius is. Matt Monroe’s Wolpack are at the top of the Chicago Catholic League with Loyola and DePaul Prep. They will obviously move up in the rankings. I expect them to be around the top at the end of the season too.

We start right into the Catholic League schedule at the end of the week. #1 DePaul Prep faces #12 Loyola at Tom Winiecki on Friday. #22 St. Ignatius will see DeLaSalle on Friday.

2018 Chicago Air and Water Show

It had been some years since I went to the Chicago Air and Water Show so I went this year. I couldn't spend all day at it. I went from about 12:00 until 3:00. I weaseled my way down front right outside the beach house. 

I got some good shots with my 300mm. The Thunderbirds move fast, one has to be paying attention and anticipate which direction the planes will be coming from. Now that I have a little practice I will be able to get some better shots next year. The low cloud ceiling helped because the planes had to do the "low" show which meant they were much closer. 

Posted some photos to social media after some quick processing in Lightroom Mobile on my phone. They looked okay but I wasn't very happy with them right there on the beach. But when I got back home and did some processing on my computer and big monitor I was surprised to see how i could pull the color out of the RAW images. And the high megapixels camera allows tight crops. To all those people that say, "the camera doesn't matter.," try shooting the Air and Water show with a crappy camera. 

 Hope you like the photos.