West Aurora grad Carlini best in Big Ten
Time for some more college achievers from the fall season....
Former Gatorade national player of the year Lauren Carlini, a sophomore volleyball player at Wisconsin out of West Aurora, was named the Big Ten's player of the year and setter of the year. Coming off a 3-set sweep of Purdue to win the Big Ten title at 18-1, Carlini ranked second in the league in assists and service aces per set. She added 2.84 digs per sent and racked up a team-high 14 double-doubles on the season. A unanimous all-conference pick, she's Wisconsin's first Big Ten setter of the year. Carlini also was a Capitol One Academic All-District First-Team pick with a 3.37 grade-point average.
Carlini and Wisconsin (28-2) advanced to Thursday's opening round of the national tournament, a regional opener against Western Michigan in Madison. Also in Madison was Marquette, which offers redshirt sophomore setter Mary Nilles (Batavia). She's played 30 of 32 sets for 24-8 Marquette, which faced Illinois State on Thursday. In 93 sets Nilles had racked up 480 assists, second for Marquette.
St. Ambrose two-year co-captain Breanna "Bre" Choffin (Batavia), a four-year starting defender, was a First-Team selection in the Midwest Collegiate Conference for a second straight season. Not only anchoring one of the top defenses in NAIA women's soccer, Choffin also placed third on the Fighting Bees with 10 points on 4 goals and 2 assists. A graduate student with a 3.93 grade-point average in physical therapy, she was named a Daktronics-NAIA Women's Soccer Scholar-Athlete. She's a four-time Academic All-Conference selection as well.
South Dakota State linebacker T.J. Lally (Marmion) earned second-team honors in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The 6-foot, 220-pound junior led the Jackrabbits with 103 tackles and 9.5 tackles for loss.
Notre Dame senior defender Sammy Scofield (Geneva) ended her college soccer career in a 2-1 loss to Texas A & M in the NCAA Division I Sweet Sixteen. Scofield played the full 90 minutes for the 14-6-2 Irish, and played 88 games over her career, 21 this season, all starts and with the third-most minutes on the squad.
Butler redshirt quarterback Matt Shiltz (St. Charles North) was named an Academic All-Pioneer Football League First-Team selection. He's making all the right reads in accounting with a 3.92 GPA. He also was tearing it up on the field until a hand injury in Week 6 against Campbell. At the time Shiltz led the PFL in total offense and passing efficiency and was second in the league in passing yardage. In a Week 3 win over Taylor he threw for 387 yards and 3 touchdowns, ran for 86 yards and 2 touchdowns. He didn't return this season, finishing with 1,324 yards passing, 10 touchdowns.
Another St. Charles North graduate, Aurora University cross country runner Christina Luptak, advanced to the NCAA Division III championship after a 25th-place finish at the Midwest regional in Oshkosh. She ran the second-best time in Spartans women's history to do so.
We had him in here before for academic reasons, but on the football field Augustana senior defensive back Ben Fornek (Batavia) earned First-Team Defense honors in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin. He finished third on the Vikings (bet he loves that name) with 65 tackles, and added 4 interceptions with 10 passes defended, plus 2 blocked kicks.
And yet another St. Charles North grad, Noah Anthony, a senior defender at Wheaton College, earned CCIW First-Team honors in men's soccer for a third straight season. He's tallied 24 points on 10 assists and 7 goals including 4 game winners. Anthony assisted on 21-3 Wheaton's tying and winning goals in a 2-1 win over Trinity (Texas) that sends the Thunder to the DIII semifinals against Oneonta in Kansas City, Missouri. North Central College junior forward Matt Koth (West Aurora) made the CCIW Second Team.
Here's one for St. Charles East. Elmhurst College senior outside hitter Sam Szarmach finished her college career as a Third-Team All-America selection by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. First-team all-region and all-CCIW this season (and First-Team Capitol One Academic All-District with a 3.82 GPA in international business), she led the Bluejays in kills with 523 and second in digs with 427. She had 19 double-doubles in kills and digs this season, which she finished her career ranked third all-time at Elmhurst in kills, 13th in digs. Szarmach is one of only three Bluejays to compile 1,500 kills and 1,200 digs.
Also in the CCIW, Augustana junior defensive specialist Kylie Siebert (Kaneland) was a Second-Team All-Conference selection as well as a Second-Team Academic All-District pick with a 3.77 GPA in business administration and marketing.
University of Wisconsin-Stout senior Megan Ramp (Batavia) helped her team win the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference fall title by 34 strokes. Tying for sixth at the conference tournament, she earned a Second-Team All-WIAC honor a third straight year including her sophomore year at UW-Whitewater.
Our pal Al Carius, 49-year head coach of North Central College men's track and field, was named NCAA Division III national coach of the year by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association for the ninth time in the 22 years the award's been handed out. Carius' Cardinals won their 16th national championship in November; since the NCAA was split into three in 1973 his teams have made the national finals all 42 years. This fall North Central - which has on its staff former area high school coaches Tom Roderick (St. Charles) and Chris Wheaton (Batavia) - won its 41st straight title in the CCIW, and its seventh straight regional.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com
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