Marmion marks banner year for football recruits
Raise your hand if you’re familiar with the Dakota Marker.
No? T.J. Lally knows about it.
“It’s a big, heavy stone,” Lally said, his voice over the phone competing with the din in Marmion’s weight room.
It’s actually a bunch of big, heavy stone monuments chiseled more than a century ago, spread far apart to delineate the border between North and South Dakota.
Lally will be more interested in the scale model awarded to the winner of the annual football game between South Dakota State University, to whom he committed to a full scholarship for football last week, and North Dakota State University, where Marmion teammate Nick Scoliere did the same.
Whether it’s this Oct. 22 or Nov. 10, 2012 — depending on whether or not Lally and Scoliere redshirt as freshmen — the rivalry game will mark the first time these lifelong buddies will face each other, figuratively speaking. Both Marmion seniors were recruited as outside linebackers.
“We’ve been good friends since kindergarten,” said Lally, a two-time Class 6A Illinois High School Football Coaches Association All-State selection who led Marmion to a state championship appearance last fall. He and Scoliere took their separate official visits the same weekends of Jan. 14-16. That Sunday morning Scoliere sent Lally a text message from Fargo to share his commitment news. Lally waited till Jan. 20 to commit.
“It’s going to be interesting going against him,” Lally said. “I’ve never played against him before, we’ve played on the same team for awhile.”
Marmion coach Dan Thorpe said, “Those are great schools, I’ve had kids go to those schools and they’ve loved it. They don’t have professional teams out there, so they’re playing with tremendous support.”
Thorpe said he will send a cadre of Cadets seniors far and wide to play college football at a variety of levels.
Along with Lally and Scoliere joining Missouri Valley Conference squads playing at the Football College Subdivision level, offensive lineman Graham Glasgow has gained preferred walk-on status at Illinois and Minnesota. Glasgow, who still has an offer from Eastern Michigan on the table, has a potential visit to Ohio State this weekend, Thorpe said.
Fellow offensive lineman Jake Winkel has a variety of options, from Truman State to Winona State to Wheaton College and the University of Chicago. He’s waiting to see about a possible appointment to the U.S. Military Academy (Army) at West Point, N.Y.
Another lineman, Mike Zolfo, is deciding between Augustana, Illinois Wesleyan and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
Defensive lineman Nate Pacer also is seeking an appointment to West Point, but not for football, Thorpe said. If that doesn’t happen Pacer may play at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin.
Receiver Phil Kloc (Benedictine), versatile Mike Carbonara (College of DuPage, Joliet) and quarterback Bobby Peters, whose top choice is Valparaiso, Thorpe said, are in the mix.
Senior Ryan Kolka is entertaining an interesting niche. He wants to be a long-snapper at a Division I school. Earlier this month Kolka attended a Chris Sailer Kicking/Rubio Long Snapping camp in Las Vegas, and those folks have the ears of people who assign college scholarships. Thorpe said Kolka may look into Dayton or Louisville.
Marmion has produced the likes of the San Diego Chargers’ Larry English, who went to Northern Illinois as does Jake Winkel’s brother Bobby. But Lally has noticed an increase in recruiter foot traffic.
“When we were freshmen and sophomores,” he said, “whenever you’d see a college coach in the halls it would be a big thing because college coaches didn’t come to Marmion that often.
“Last season and this season there were two, three coaches there a day. It’s just a giant change. It just goes to show what the coaches have done, and just the change of mentality at Marmion.”
Meanwhile, at Augustana
Thorpe stated at the outset of last season the Cadets didn’t possess the speed they had in 2009. Obviously they did just fine without it, but one of the burners Thorpe was talking about was Alex Rindone, now a sophomore track athlete at Augustana.
At the Jan. 22 Midwest Invitational in Monmouth, Rindone set Augie’s indoor 300-meter record with a time of 35.74 seconds, lowering the prior mark of 35.87 set in 2009.
In 2010, Rindone set the program indoor record in the 200 dash of 22.22 at the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin Championships. He added outdoor 100- and 200-meter outdoor titles and was named Augie’s MVP — as a freshman.
Other locals with top-five Midwest Invite finishes for Augustana either in individual or relay events were Pat Manser and James Wood (St. Charles North); Jay Graffagna and Scott Pospisil (Geneva); and Edgar Valle, Phil Christensen and Nick Sinon (Kaneland).
Triple threat
Speaking of track athletes, Batavia product Melissa Norville, an All-American sophomore at Illinois College, has won Midwest Conference performer of the week honors a second straight week.
A week ago, Norville provisionally qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championsips in the 60-meter hurdles. On Jan. 22 at Illinois College’s Snow Bird Open, she provisionally qualified in triple jump and met the NCAA automatic qualifying mark in long jump.
The Midwest Conference hands out its weekly track awards to both field athletes and track athletes, male and female. Norville won the track honor last week for the hurdles. The female field winner was Monmouth’s Allison Devor, a sophomore out of St. Charles East. At the Jan. 15 Knox Pentangular, Devor set a personal-record in the weight throw, and followed with another PR in shot put. She won the event by nearly two feet and provisionally qualified for the NCAA Indoor.