Fr. John Barrett Knights of Columbus Council Announces Free Throw Winners

Five boys and one girl from Villa Park & Lombard were named council champions for the 2015 Knights of Columbus Free Throw Championship and have earned the right to compete at the district level. Fr. John Barrett Council # 8365 of Villa Park sponsored the local competition at St. Alexander's Gym. All youngsters ages 10 to 14 were eligible to participate.

Rebecca Lopez Egan was the 10-year-old-girls champion and Anthony Mazurek was the winner of the 10 year-old-boys division. Caden Mielke was the boys champion in the 12 year old bracket. The 13 year old boys division was won by Sam Glass. Henry "Buddy" Marlens was the 14 year old boys champion. Each contest was allowed 15 free throws in the contest after taking 3 warm up shots.

Each of the winners were presented with an engraved plaque with a gold finished basketball, net and their name on it. Winners will advance to the district competition at St. Philip Gym, Addison, IL with an eye noving on to the state and international levels. Last year more than 120,000 sharpshooters participated in over 3,600 .local competitions.

The Knights of Columbus is the largest international Catholic Family fraternal service organization with over 1.8 million members in 15,000 local councils. Knights donated over 70 million volunteer hours and $167.5 million to charitable and benevolent causes, sponsoring projects to benefit their church, councils, communities, culture of life, families and youth.