Soccer seniors made a super effort this fall

Not quite ready for full-fledged membership into the Marvel Cinematic Universe nor recruited by Dr. Charles Xavier for enrollment in his School for Gifted Young Children, Kolton Batty, Luke Cohen, Brayden Grimsey and Zac Seeley, the four seniors on St. Joseph-Ogden's soccer team made a heroic effort to produce a winning soccer season this fall.

Batty, who was named All-Conference First Team, along with an Honorable Mention for Seeley, were recognized as All-Conference players by the Illini Prairie Conference. Seeley was also recognized as the 2019 squad's Most-Valuable-Player at the SJO Fall Sports Awards earlier this week.

The quartet of seasoned and skilled footballers did not reach the level of success they had hoped as a team but will most certainly take the lessons they learned about themselves through the various trials and tribulations they encountered this season to become worthy X-Men or members of the MCU.

The Spartans finished the season with a record of seven wins, 14 losses and four ties. The team lost by two goals or less in seven of their losses.

The four seniors played for a combined 6,038 minutes. Batty was punched in for 1,709 of them.

Back in September after a home game, I interviewed the four about their hero personas. Here is a glance at the soccer team's unsung heroes.

Batty makes First-Team all-conference soccer team

Last week, Kolton Batty was one of three St. Joseph-Ogden soccer team members awarded Illini Prairie all-conference honors. The senior was the Spartans' only First-Team recipient.

Batty, the team's top defensive specialist who appeared in 25 games for SJO this season, scored one goal during several brief forays on the Spartan offense. He scored the only goal in his team's 6-1 loss to Iroquois West at the Cornjerker Classic. He took a total of 13 shots this season.

Also earning all-conference honors were goal keeper Hunter Ketchum (second-team) and Zac Seeley (honorable mention).

Ketchum spent 1,541 minutes defending St. Joseph-Ogden's goal. Only a freshman, he inherited keeper duties from Mason Behrens and finished the season with 145 saves at an average of 6.3 per game.

Seeley, a three-year varsity veteran, scored 11 goals this season and 21 total during his four seasons with SJO. The senior notched a hattrick in the Spartans' 5-1 win over Schlarman in September and recorded 3,066 minutes on the pitch during his career.