One last check of the mailbag
Let's pick up where we left off last week with the college achievements of some DuPage County collegiates ...
DePaul and favored St. John's were tied 3-3 for the Big East Conference women's tennis championship final, April 30 in Cayce, South Carolina. The match, title and NCAA tournament bid came down to Blue Demons junior Keisha Clousing, who at Wheaton Warrenville South in 2012 had won the state singles title and been named Chicago junior player of the year. Clousing opened with a 6-4 win over St. John's Anna Morozova, and won the second set 7-5 to give DePaul its third Big East title in four seasons. Before this season Clousing hadn't played college tennis in two years. Initially signing with Clemson, she transferred to Wheaton College, where she played for the Thunder women's basketball team in 2014-15 and 2015-16. Regaining the tennis bug, she accepted DePaul's sole remaining scholarship.
Marquette freshman Brett Meyers (Neuqua Valley) was named the most valuable player for the Golden Eagles' men's tennis squad. Primarily at No. 6 singles he went 13-1 in that slot and 16-3 overall. Meyers won 11 straight matches in one stretch, and won three at the Big East tournament.
Nebraska's Shea Mahoney (St. Francis) competed nine times on uneven bars her freshman season, scoring a season-best 9.900 twice, against Kentucky and Iowa State. She scored a 9.8250 at the NCAA Championships for the sixth-place Crimson Tide.
On April 9 Illinois State freshman Emma Butts (Fenton) was named the Redbirds' most-improved diver.
Hope College senior Erin Herrmann (WW South) won the NCAA Division III women's 3,000-meter steeplechase title May 27 in Geneva, Ohio, in a school-record time of 10 minutes, 21.08 seconds, the ninth-fastest time in Division III history. The 2016 runner-up, Herrmann also was named the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association most valuable runner after winning steeplechase a third consecutive season and running on a victorious 1,600 relay. Herrmann won Hope's award for top performance in an individual sport and shared the college's award for top female senior student-athlete.
In March Washington University of St. Louis won the Division III women's indoor track title for the first time, and in May it won the outdoor title for the first time. Again helping set the pace was senior Rebecca Ridderhoff (Downers Grove North), who won the 400-meter hurdles in a stadium-record 59.43 seconds, finished sixth in the 100 hurdles and ran on a fourth-place 1,600 relay.
One of Ridderhoff's Downers North classmates, Marckus Simmons, won Augustana's first individual track and field national championship in 10 years. Seeded No. 1 in the hammer throw, Simmons threw the event's top four distances including the winning heave of 202 feet, 1 inch, which ranks second all-time for the Vikings - after Simmons' own school-record toss of 206-8 on May 18 in Rock Island.
The Division I track championships will be held June 7-10 in Eugene, Oregon. Among the qualifiers are Big Ten long-jump champ and Purdue junior Savannah Carson (Neuqua Valley), also in the 400 relay; Northern Illinois senior Hope Schmelzle (WW South) in the steeplechase; Iowa senior Antwon James (Glenbard East) in triple jump; and Nebraska's 1,600-meter relay team that includes senior Jake Bender (Neuqua Valley) and junior Sam Bransby (Naperville Central). The decathlon offers two former Lake Park Lancers, Rice junior Scott Filip and Michigan State junior Tim Ehrhardt.
Illinois State's D'Jenne Egharevba (Naperville Central) was the Missouri Valley Conference freshman of the year for women's track, placing third in the 100 at the conference meet, fourth in the 200 and second on the 400 and 1,600 relays. Egharevba reached the NCAA West Preliminary 100-meter quarterfinals, clocking 11.41 seconds.
Two local men earned 2016-17 Cross Country/Track Academic All-District honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA): Georgetown graduate student Mike Lederhouse (Glenbard West) and Grand Valley State senior Chris May (York). Lederhouse, who carried a perfect 4.0 grade-point average in his graduate studies in integrated marketing communication, earned his fifth such honor. May earned a 3.94 GPS in biomedical sciences and placed top-seven in both the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races at the Division II Outdoor Championships.
Schmelzle and Ridderhoff likewise earned the CoSIDA notice for track athletes. So did Taylor University sophomore Elizabeth Mae Gimre (West Chicago), who got a 3.91 GPA in elementary education; and Macalester senior Kimber Meyer (Naperville North), who graduated with a 3.96 GPA in biology. Meyer's a usual suspect, the MIAA 5,000 and 10,000 champ this spring and Macalester's only three-time "M Club" student-athlete of the year.
In baseball a trio of players earned CoSIDA Academic All-District awards. Benet produced two of them: Chicago University outfielder Connor Hickey, a first-team All-University Athletic Association center fielder with a .456 on-base percentage, earned a 3.51 GPA in economics; Illinois senior first baseman Pat McInerney paired a 3.48 GPA in business process management and marketing with 15 home runs, ninth all-time for the Illini. Also, McNeese State junior infielder Joe Provenzano (Downers North) hit .336 with 54 RBI and was named CoSIDA all-district with a 3.79 GPA in finance.
Last week we mentioned Concordia-Chicago junior catcher Kevin Coppin (Lisle) in relation to his first-team honors in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. Coppin also earned the NCAA's Elite 90 award, presented to the student-athlete with the highest GPA participating at the finals site of the NCAA's 90 championships. Coppin earned it with his 3.96 cumulative in accounting. Illinois Wesleyan junior catcher (coincidence?) Amanda Lack (Waubonsie Valley) won the Elite 90 Division III softball honor a second straight year, a 4.0 GPA in psychology for pre-law.
Illinois-Springfield senior Amanda Gosbeth (West Chicago) had a season and career to remember. A third-team Division II CoSIDA Academic All-America selection with a perfect 4.0 GPA in mathematics, the - yes - catcher hit .336 and started 48 of 54 games to finish fourth in Prairie Stars history in games played. She's top-seven in 12 other categories, first in stolen base percentage (54 of 60) and sacrifice bunts. On April 30 Illinois-Springfield named Gosbeth its female athlete of the year, its senior scholar-athlete, and softball MVP.
University of Illinois sophomore Stephanie Abello (Benet) earned a first-team Division I Midwest region pick from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA). She hit .307 with 11 doubles, 13 home runs and 41 runs batted in, was second on the team in slugging and threw out 62 percent of runners attempting to steal. She's a catcher.
Armstrong State senior Jane Trzaska (Glenbard South) was the Peach Belt Conference's pitcher of the year. She went 17-7 with a 1.29 earned-run average, giving up 88 hits and striking out 109 batters in 157 innings. An NFCA third-team All-America, Trzaska threw a no-hitter in the NCAA Southwest Regional knockout game and when she wasn't pitching she hit .307 with 8 home runs and 30 RBI as a right fielder.
Lawrence University freshman Amanda Karnatz (York) sped to All-Midwest Conference first-team honors. Hitting a program-record 15 doubles, the center fielder hit a team-high .405, scored 35 runs in 36 games and stole 36 bases, one off the school record.
In an 8-5 win over Mercyhurst on May 18, freshman Megan Arcivar (Metea Valley) went 4-for-4 and drove in a run to help Waubonsee Community College earn its first National Junior College Athletic Association Division II championship tournament win ever.
Margaret Doane was home-schooled, but she's from Glen Ellyn. Her sophomore year mirrored the second year of Concordia-Chicago's women's lacrosse program. After scoring 10 goals in a winless 2016, this spring Doane scored 35 goals to help the Cougars to six wins. She capped the year with a 4-goal game in a 10-8 win over Benedictine University, earning her second Concordia athlete of the week nod.
Augustana junior goalkeeper Analia Fowler (York) was voted onto the CCIW first-team women's lacrosse squad, helping the Vikings to an unbeaten conference record. Overall Fowler went 7-5 with a .429 saves percentage and 10.17 goals against and is Augie's career leader in both.
On the men's side Illinois Wesleyan senior attack Max Porter (St. Francis) reaped his second first-team all-CCIW lacrosse selection. Porter caused a team-high 9 turnovers and picked up 20 groundballs for a Titans squad that reached the Division III Sweet Sixteen.
Football in April? Sort of. That's when Illinois State junior quarterback and physical education major Jake Kolbe (Naperville Central), whose 2,703 passing yards last fall were the sixth most in program history, was bestowed the Clifford E. Horton Scholarship Award at the ISU School of Kinesiology and Recreation Academic Achievement and Service Awards Ceremony.
Futbol in June? Indeed. UCLA junior Zoey Goralski (Neuqua Valley) has been called up to the U.S. Soccer Women's Under-23 National Team as a midfielder. Fifth in minutes last fall for the Bruins on defense, Goralski and the U-23s will head to Sweden for three games June 6-12 in the Open Nordic Tournament.
doberhelman@dailyherald.com
Follow Dave on Twitter @doberhelman1