Who is Your Teams Biggest Rival?

Wassup13_rivals219252 said:

Who is Your Teams Biggest Rival?

What is your most memorable game between them?

Has your rival team changed throughout the decades?

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Very era dependent for JCA.

It was undoubtedly MC through much of the 90s and early 00s. Prior to that it was the Illini 8 and some local public schools., but they all were up and down in their levels of success. Marian Catholic was one of the bigger regular season games for a good stretch too.

Morris was the playoff nemesis of the 90s and 2000s, but the last decade or so has been lopsided the few times they have met.

For a short period in the 2000s when the ESCC was a closed conference and Carmel Mundelein was near their peak, that was the biggest regular season rival.

Naz and Montini have been playoff thorns over the last 10-15 years, but it's hard to classify that as a true rivalry. They are essentially serving the role Morris played 15 plus years ago now, though the results are not always as favorable.

Really the best answer for JCA over the past 20-25 years is Providence. Starting with matchups in the mid 90s and mid 2000s, both teams would always be highly ranked and there were times each was the overall best team in the state. Games were tense and emotions high when they matched up. That is the game the kids, team, and schools seem to get most hyped up for.

Silver Rain said:

The LA-MC rivalry is like the Cubs vs the Sox. When MC wins and LA loses, even when they aren't playing each other, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. When MC and LA play each other, it is a holy day of obligation. Like all true rivalries, it is a love-hate relationship, in the sense that LA is a team I love to hate.

I need to be careful here because the Ramblers are a little touchy about the relative merits of each program, but I think that Dean said, overall, their record against each other is nearly even. There is no question, however, that Holecek elevated the program. Before he arrived in 2006, LA had won a single state championship, which occurred in '93 with John Hoerster. Holecek won his first title in 2015. MC, meanwhile, had accumulated 12 in that time, all but one under Frank Lenti.

LA fans don't want to hear about the lost decades when they were a no-show in Champaign. But I think it's fair to bring it up. Even with Holecek, they won only three titles in 17 years, compared to five in seven for Jordan Lynch. This is a permanent sword in their side, and they sputter in indignation whenever it is mentioned. But the record is clear: MC 17, LA 6.

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This Loyola fan is not touchy at all. I do not sputter in indignation, nor do I feel any permanent sword in my side.

I'll go ya one further and say that I don't consider MC to be Loyola's single biggest rival. For me, a rivalry should be local, or somewhat local. MC doesn't satisfy that requirement for me -- even somewhat. My ideal main football rival would be NDCP or New Trier because of proximity alone, but that just has never materialized.

When I was at Loyola, our biggest rival was Gordon Tech. That was back when Gordon had 2700 boys and Loyola had 1500. It was also back in the day when the CCL was not yet in the IHSA, so we weren't playing public schools back then. Both schools drew from a lot of the same northside neighborhoods, so that made it local for us. I don't consider Gordon's successor, DePaul Prep, to be Loyola's biggest rival either, although I am hoping that rivalry can grow as DPP continues to improve their program.

Outside of football, Loyola's biggest overall athletic rivalry, hands down, is New Trier. New Trier, New Trier, New Trier, all day long. I wish we played each other more in football. I want districts solely because I would want to be in the same district as New Trier and perhaps NDCP. After New Trier, I would say Loyola's biggest overall athletic rivalry is with Ignatius because of the Jesuit thing and because Ignatius draws a good deal of its enrollment from the northside which has been Loyola's stomping ground for decades,

If you pressed me to say who are Loyola's biggest football rivals right at this moment, I would have to say, for me, I don't have one. For others, and especially for those in the program, it's probably MC.

1) Coal City

2) Reed-Custer - not really a rivalry because it is so extremely lopsided but definitely the team that Wilmington loves pounding the most

3) Byron - Havent met in a few years but off the top of my head they are probably 50/50 in meet ups with 4 or 5 total I believe. Always fun when we met in the playoffs. I remember when they beat us in Wilmington the year after the first state title (we beat them in the semifinals the year before), one happy dad from Byron was taunting Wilmington fans to "Start the Harley's". I got a chuckle out of that