St. Francis travels to Glenbard South on Saturday at 11 a.m. as each team plays their third and final game of the Glenbard South Invitational. Montini and Nazareth Academy will play at 9 a.m.

The Spartans (1-1-0) opened the season and tournament with a 2-1 loss to Nazareth Academy on Wednesday and then blanked Montini 4-0 on Thursday.

“We’re doing OK,” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. “I like the group a lot. We’ve got to find some ways to score some goals, and I think you’re going to hear that from many of the coaches.”

The coach saw positives in the season-opening loss.

“We played pretty well,” he said. “We knocked it around, but we didn’t capitalize on some opportunities. Nazareth was very physical. They played very hard, a credit to them. Generally, we handled it pretty well.”

Top returnees Luke Argamasilla, John Yarusso and Peter Williams in the senior class, and junior Nicholas Tisjlar welcome sophomores Ryan Callander and Brody Jochum to the club.

St. Francis finished 6-5-1 overall last season and shared the Chicago Catholic Conference White Division title with DeLaSalle with a 5-0-1 record.

The Spartans did not play in an in-season tournament in 2023. Previously they played in the Hillner Classic at Lake Park.

St. Francis can spoil Glenbard South's shot at the tourney title with a win or tie.

Glenbard South (1-0-1) beat Montini 7-2 on Wednesday before drawing even 0-0 with Nazareth Academy on Thursday.

“We were ridiculously young last year starting six sophomores and three freshmen, so we’re older and more mature,” Glenbard South coach Willie Fajkus said. “We got beat a lot last year, so our tournament is a good start. The real test is Larkin on Tuesday. They’re the returning conference co-champs from last year, so we’ll know a lot more after Tuesday’s game.”

There’s no doubt the Raiders are further along than they were at this time last year. They finished the campaign with a 5-15-2 overall record and 0-9-0 mark in the Upstate Eight Conference.

“We had a better summer and were able to get together and have 11 scrimmages,” Fajkus said. “I’m very pleased that the team is much further along in the development process. No player assessments, now it’s a matter of finding combinations that work. This tournament is to experiment a little and see what will work and on Tuesday things get pretty real.”

Seniors Ryan Hopkins and Diesel Oleksak and juniors P.J. Lehr and Wyatt Bremer are back to lead the Raiders. 

It’s been 10 years since these two teams went head-to-head and the Raiders earned a 2-0 victory on Oct. 11, 2014.