After a delay to the start of the season, the St. Louis U. High basketball team is set to kick off the 2020-2021 season with a back-to-back slate vs. MICDS on Dec. 11 and vs. Miller Career Academy on Dec. 12. 

The Christmas-y duo of seniors Brendan Carr and Carter Fortman, otherwise known as Santa’s elves, played and recorded a mallet duet of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”—another example of the tremendous work that the band program has done to overcome the challenges of the pandemic and make this Christmas season special.

The St. Louis U. High hockey beat Oakville twice this past week—4-1 on Thursday night at South County Recreation Center, and 3-0 Saturday at Webster Ice Arena. Bouncing back from their loss against CBC on Nov. 27, the Jr. Bills now have their first winning record of the year, even though Covid-19 has sidelined a few crucial players. Stepping up to the challenge, SLUH was led to victory by sophomore goalie Wyatt Gotschall, who is filling in for an unavailable Jake Buttice.

The St. Louis U. High rifle team pushed through the Covid restrictions and shot in Washington, Mo. for the first and possibly last match of the season. Due to the pandemic, the match has had to be extended and a few teams have yet to shoot. The rankings will not be finalized until this Friday, but the team sits well and expects to finish with a high ranking. The team still has some rust to knock off, but the shooters showed promise.

Beginning the regular season by facing St. Clair High School in a dual meet on Wednesday, Dec. 9, the Saint Louis U. High wrestling team is focusing on adapting to recent rule changes due to Covid-19. 

The two varsity racquetball teams faced off against each other last Tuesday, Dec. 1. Once every year, as a part of the league schedule, the two SLUH teams all competed against each other. Thus far in the history of SLUH racquetball, no Varsity-2 team has ever beat a Varsity-1 team.

Spotify or Apple Music? Yanny or Laurel? Is the dress white and gold or is it blue and black? SLUH or SLUH West? (Well, that is not much of a debate.) All of these are highly debated by our generation, however, the holy grail of debates and the one of most relevance to the theme of my article is: Who has the best chicken sandwich? 

Following the return from Thanksgiving break the Saint Louis U. High administration instituted a new set of hallway safety laws to go along with the one-way signs already in place, inducing the introduction of traffic lights, speed bumps, and a carpool lane along with many other roadway standards. While the administration had hoped this would cut down on reckless behavior in the hallways, the school has seen an uptick in reckless walking behavior that has resulted in several accidents.

From the end of October through December, St. Louis U. High was blessed to have Jesuit Novice Manuel Luna Vega helping out around the school in many different ways. 

Most Saint Louis U. High students can recall seeing Chinese exchange students in the halls in the last few years. Some students can even remember classes they shared. This year, though, Chinese exchange students could not come to SLUH physically, attending virtually instead.