Lion Sports Update 01/25

Soccer
The varsity soccer team enjoyed their most successful week of the SPC North Zone counter season with home wins against Trinity Valley and Casady by identical scores of 3-1. The six points earned by the Lions saw them ascend from eighth place in the North Zone to fourth. While yet qualify for the SPC championship tournament, they remain in the hunt and will most likely need six more points to guarantee a post season berth.  On Wednesday evening, Juan Montabes Sicilia ’18 opened the scoring in the ninth minute with a perfectly placed header to the far post from Corday Cruz’s ’17 corner kick. The early goal saw St. Mark’s lose its focus and Trinity Valley capitalized with a well-struck free kick that equalized before half. The Lions regained their form as the second half unfurled. Senior Josh Bandopadhay’s decisive strike from just beyond the penalty area put the Lions ahead in the 58th minute before Jake Vaughn ’17 sealed the victory with help from Arjun Singh ’18 and Gordon Gunn ’17 in the 77th minute. Man of the Match honors go to Teddy Koudelka ’17 who dominated aerial battles throughout the contest. On Friday night St. Mark’s hosted Casady who arrived feeling confident after soundly defeating ESD at home. After starting the match well, the Lions quickly found themselves at a deficit after allowing a soft goal. St. Mark’s kept their composure and equalized in the 26th minute when Josh Bandopadhay ’17 converted Vaughn’s pass into a goal of high quality. Five minutes after halftime, Nolan Jenevein ’17 found himself positioned perfectly on the far post to coolly redirect Bandopadhay’s service and notch the go-ahead goal. Koudelka finished the scoring in the 67th minute when, from point-blank range, he opportunistically poked a Hyer Thomas ’17 rebound (from junior Owen Berger’s throw-in) past a mass of bodies into the Casaday net. With inspired play from Jake Vaughn, significant contributions from a deep bench, and unified play from the entire team, the Lions played their most complete match of the season. This week, the Lions travel to Oakridge on Tuesday night and then on Friday host Dallas Christian in a non-SPC game on Senior Night. 
 
Basketball
The varsity basketball team competed in two home contests last week. On Tuesday, the Lions took on the 2-0 Trinity Valley Trojans. St. Mark’s started quickly and led by 10 points early in the second quarter, thanks to a double-digit effort from Sam Sussman ’18. However, the shooting went ice cold shortly thereafter, and TVS trimmed the margin to 2 early in the 4th. But Sussman converted a key layup, and fellow captain, senior Will Ingram, knocked down an important 3-pointer and some game-clinching free throws to secure a 6-point victory for the home team. On Friday, defending North Zone champion Casady came to Dallas. Hoping to avenge a loss in last season’s SPC 3rd place game, the Cyclones overcame 3 early 3-pointers by the Lions with a shooting barrage of their own to forge an 8-point halftime lead. St. Mark’s responded with Sussman and Ingram once again leading way (35 points combined), but couldn’t quite pull out the win despite cutting the deficit to 2 early in the 4th quarter. The Lions play an important counter game at Oakridge Tuesday night and then host Dallas Christian for senior night on Friday. 
 
Wrestling
The varsity wrestling team traveled to Houston to compete in the Prep State Dual Tournament. Over the course of the long one day tournament, the team wrestled against 5 other prep schools from around the state. The team finished 1-4, defeating fellow SPC foe ESD and narrowly losing to Kinkaid by just 6 points. Will Wood ’18 (113 lb) and Tucker Ribman ’18 (126 lb) both went undefeated on the day. The team will travel to the Arlington Bowie 2-day Tournament this Friday and Saturday. 
 
Swim
The varsity swim team traveled to Greenhill last Thursday to take on the Hornets. The Lions won the meet 140-26. This week the Lions host Cistercian at home on Tuesday at 5:45 p.m.

Student Athlete News
A team of freshmen from the cross country team entered into the relay portion of the Dallas Marathon in December. The Dallas Marathon has a half marathon race, a full marathon, and a 5-person marathon relay race. Five boys, Andres Arroyos, Pablo Arroyos, Luke Evangelist, Tyler Nussbaumer, and Devan Patel, entered as a team. The 26.2 mile marathon is split into 5 legs and each boy runs a leg which varies between 4.25 and 6.25 miles each. The relay runners use a tracking band in place of a traditional relay baton as the hand-off to the next runner. Luke was injured and unable to participate with the team on the race day so Tyler ran two legs of the relay for a distance of about 10 miles.  

The Dallas Marathon was held on Sunday morning - Dec 11, 2016.  Pablo, Andres, Devan and Tyler did well on race day and, more important, had a great time. The boys had a team goal to finish the marathon in under three hours and accomplished that goal with a finish time of 2hr 54m and 28sec, with an average pace of 6min and 40sec. Official race results were released on January 18 and the boys’ finish time gave them a 6th place overall finish out of 623 finishing relay teams! The boys will continue running together during track and field and cross country seasons and are hoping to also continue running as a relay team in the Dallas Marathon each year.
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St. Mark’s School of Texas

10600 Preston Road
Dallas, Texas 75230
214-346-8000

About Us

St. Mark’s School of Texas is a private, nonsectarian college-preparatory boys’ day school for students in grades 1 through 12, located in Dallas, Texas. St. Mark’s aims to prepare young men to assume leadership and responsibility in a competitive and changing world.

St. Mark’s does not discriminate in the administration of its admission and education policies on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin.