On January 10, Jesuit held its 31st Meintser Soccer Tournament. As usual, Jesuit rolled over the competition to kick off the 2013 season, while still honoring a Legend in soccer history.
Every year Jesuit invites teams from around the metroplex to play in the Meintser Tournament which first started in 1982 to honor Henricus “Henk” Meintser. Henk Meintser was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1923 and grew up with a passion for the game. In 1949 he and his wife Nel came to the U.S. to live the American dream.
A few decades after his arrival, soccer started to explode on the National scene, especially in Dallas. During this time there was only the Texas Soccer Association, which was over extended to say the least. Coach Meintser along with a few of his companions saw a need for a more centralized organization, and so the North Texas Soccer Association was born.
Meintser became the organization’s first president and continued to spread his love for the game. In addition to this, he founded Texas’ first high school soccer team at Jesuit in 1960, where he continued to coach for 20 years. After 20 years, Henk decided it was time to retire in 1982 and Jesuit felt that the best way to honor a man, who gave his life to the game, was to create the Meintser Tournament.
Though naming the tournament after Coach Meintser is a great way to honor him, winning is probably the best and that is exactly what the Rangers did. Jesuit started off hot, beating a cross town rival, Bishop Lynch, by a score of 1 – 0. Meanwhile, Marcus, a two time state champion, battled Skyline. It was a back and forth game, but ultimately Skyline prevailed with a penalty kick, in the last two minutes, to make the final score 3 – 2.
For round two of the tournament, Jesuit faced off against North Mesquite. It stayed close all the way through, but Jesuit eventually came away with another 1 – 0 victory, setting up the showdown in the finals with Skyline.
Both teams came out punching, with Jesuit and Skyline both scoring one goal each in the first half. But in the second half it appeared that Jesuit was pulling away, scoring a goal and never relinquishing the lead, until Skyline scored yet another goal in the last two minutes and thirty seconds, causing the game to eventually go into a penalty kick shootout.
Jesuit shot first, making their first three shots, but the advantage of shooting second did not prove beneficial enough; Skyline missed two of their first three shots. This allowed Brendan Chavez ’13 to seal the victory for Jesuit in dramatic fashion on the fourth shot, clenching yet another Meintser Tournament championship for the school.
Chris Wengierski ’14 described what the Meintser tournament means to him, “It was pretty awesome, because it gave me a chance to play in a tournament in [Coach Meintser’s] honor, but also to compete against some pretty good teams.”
This victory in a sense “is what is expected” according to Wengierski and Head Coach Charlie DeLong agreed: “Every game is about three things: winning, working hard, and getting better, if we don’t accomplish any of those what is the point.”
Looking toward the future Delong does not truly know what we can expect from this team, but he does know that “in order to have a good team you need good players, luck, character, a good administration, and supportive parents.” Judging from that list it appears that the Jesuit Soccer team is in for an electric season.
