Montini's Jarosinski ready for national test
Biology, computer science, theology, English, Olympic Team Trials, Spanish, geometry.
These were the tests on Montini freshman basketball player Lindsey Jarosinski's plate this week.
Her final exams complete on Wednesday, Jarosinski, her parents, Steve and Janan, and older brother, Mitchell, a 6-foot-5 junior center at Lake Park, flew out Thursday morning to the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. From Thursday through Monday, Lindsey is participating in trials for the 2015 USA Women's Under-16 National Team.
In March the USA Basketball Women's Developmental National Team Committee invited 35 girls nationwide to attend the 16U Team Trials on the Olympic dime. Lindsey Jarosinski was the sole Illinois invitee. The total roster is up to 158, including five Illinoisans, with those additional players participating on their own volition. The 12 lucky girls who make the national team will be announced Monday.
The Jarosinskis, of Medinah, don't know exactly how Lindsey landed the invite and neither does Montini coach Jason Nichols. Having made national "watch" lists, as the 6-foot-4 center has, it's not a stretch she would be asked. When the invitation arrived in Nichols' inbox at Montini, no one really cared how it happened.
"I was surprised," Jarosinski said. "I wasn't sure what it was, but then he had me read the statement of what it was and he was really happy and I was really happy."
Since Montini ended its 2014-15 campaign with a third-place Class 2A finish in Normal, Jarosinski has been playing with her club team, the Lady Lightning, which has already traveled to tournaments in Wisconsin and Michigan plus Illinois. With Montini, she averaged 6.1 points and 6.2 rebounds and shot 59 percent from the floor.
Jarosinski plays up for Lady Lightning coach Mike Seberger, on the 17U team, although she's just 14.
"I think that helps playing with bigger people," said Jarosinski, who contemplates studying marine biology in college. "At my age there's not that many tall girls that can play, so it's good to play with tall girls that can play, but it's also harder because they're so much bigger and stronger and more mature."
Jarosinski packs about 185 pounds onto her frame, 6-5 in hoops shoes. The daughter of two high school basketball players - her 6-8 father went downstate with Elgin in 1983 and played at Ottawa College in Kansas - Lindsey has a heightened ancestry. Janan is around 5-9, above average for a woman, with a 6-2 brother, a 6-4 father and relatives who neared 7 feet.
"I never knew exactly where the height came from till we saw some old photos," Steve Jarosinski said.
Lindsey started playing with her brother around the third grade. By fifth grade she already had the goal of becoming an Olympic basketball player. Seberger encouraged her path toward that goal, and this is a step toward that.
Nichols said, "I just think it is an incredible opportunity to compete against the nation's best players, and being selected confirms her potential is among the nation's best."
After a battery of final tests, it may feel like a vacation in Colorado, where among the trees she'll perform her drop step, middle hook and back-to-the-basket low-block arsenal.
Excited? Nervous?
Yes. But what does she have to lose?
"Yeah, exactly," Jarosinski said. "I'll just go out there and do what I do."
Head over heels
Heading senior-level gymnasts from DuPage County high schools, St. Francis junior Shea Mahoney, an Alabama recruit, placed seventh in all-around at the Junior Olympic National Championships May 15 in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Level-10 gymnast, participating in the Senior B competition, Mahoney tied for second on vault and tied for third on floor exercise to spark her high overall finish.
On the Senior C level Downers Grove's Kaitlyn Menzione finished 46th overall. Clarendon Hills' Jenna Squillo placed 26th all-around among Senior D gymnasts.
Top drawer
They may start falling off now with the state playoffs under way, but Wednesday's Top Drawer Soccer Fab 50 included 10 Chicago-area teams of the top 25 girls teams in the country.
They start with No. 3 New Trier. Wheaton North and Naperville North ranked Nos. 6-7 with Barrington right behind. Waubonsie Valley gets No. 17, Neuqua Valley No. 21.
Also in the mix are St. Charles East and St. Charles North at Nos. 10-11, Plainfield North and Loyola.
King Duke
York's Brandon Peterson didn't start playing tennis till the end of the eighth grade. That's why it comes as such a pleasant surprise to Dukes tennis coach Tres Heimann that on May 15 at the West Suburban Conference Silver Division meet Peterson became York's wins leader with 121, surpassing the 120 total victories accrued by David Genovese in 1999 and Jennifer Williams in 2006.
Named York's senior athlete of the year on May 4, Peterson entered this week with 33 wins this spring and 122 total after the Dukes' top singles player earned his third straight WSC Silver medalist honor.
College notes
In April North Central College in Naperville announced it was adding two new varsity sports to its roster for the 2016-17 school year, increasing the total to 25, most in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin.
Women's triathlon, announced in 2014 by the NCAA as an emerging sport for women, and men's lacrosse are on the roster. Coaches have yet to be named.
Aurora University is adding its 22nd varsity sport this October with the inception of women's bowling. The new team will be coached by Angela Rechsteiner, a Division II and III first-team All-American in 2004 with Wisconsin-Whitewater.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com
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