Finishing second drives Harper's Escareno
Jesus Escareno ran better than nearly all the rest in the NJCAA Division III men's cross country national meet.
And that has the Harper College freshman and Rolling Meadows graduate motivated for more after finishing second individually and helping the team finish fourth Saturday in Kings Park, N.Y.
"Jesus ran great," first-year Harper coach Dan Delahunt said. "He's very excited. He had a great experience and now he wants to come back and win."
Escareno ran the 8K race in 27:46 to earn All-American honors. He finished 38 seconds behind Chris Mason of team champion SUNY-Delhi.
Harper sophomore Matt Damhauser (Hoffman Estates) was 14th in 28:36 and sophomore Tim Hoskinson (Hoffman) was 32nd in 29:38.
Tony Russo (Fremd), Nick Hill (Rolling Meadows), Carlos Ocampo (Lake Zurich) and Anthony Simone (Bartlett) completed the Hawks' top seven as they finished behind SUNY-Delhi, College of DuPage and Mohawk Valley.
"Jesus and Matt ran great and everyone else ran good," Delahunt said. "At the national meet good is only going to get you so far. We ran good but we needed to run great."
Heather Cebulko (Bartlett) finished 15th in the 5K women's race in 22:04 and Tabitha Thomas (Schaumburg) was 18th in 22:22. Rachel Russo and Carly Anderson also ran for Harper.
"I thought we had a great season," Delahunt said. "Our big thing was (winning) the Region championship.
"I wish the national meet would have been a little better but as a whole the season was a success."
Finding the range: The Harper women's basketball team managed only 62 points in a pair of blowout losses to start the season.
But the Hawks were able to get it going offensively Tuesday and held on for a 64-60 win at Morton College.
"I don't think they were ready to play at that level yet," Harper coach Rusty Becker said of 13 percent shooting from 3-point range and 26 percent inside the arc in the 0-2 start. "The speed of the game really caught them off guard."
Harper had a balanced attack as Larissa Coldebella and Jen Murray had 16 points apiece and Emily Vierneisel added 12 points. Freshman Katy Spencer of Palatine was solid with 9 points, 9 assists and 5 rebounds.
"She had an excellent floor game," Becker said. "She really did a nice job. She had to play the whole game because I needed her leadership on the floor."
Now Becker hopes the Hakws are better at playing with a lead as a 13-point advantage was cut to one with 30 seconds to play.
"We still made some freshman mistakes," Becker said. "But overall we did a great job of breaking the press and we were able to hit some outside shots.
"We had a little more confidence in ourselves. We were able to finally break things down and work on our press-breaker and work on some things we haven't worked on in awhile."
Harper has its first home game at 7 p.m. Tuesday against the Northwestern club team.
A perfect return: First-year Harper men's basketball coach Tony Amarino had a perfect homecoming Tuesday.
The Hawks improved to 3-0 with an 86-71 win at Morton College, where Amarino coached the previous 16 seasons. They took control early in the second half and led by double digits the rest of the way.
Mike Silungan (Conant) scored 12 of his 21 points in the first half. Jon Winsor (Maine West) added 13 points and Bobby Rhodes (Schaumburg) scored 12. Andy Merklein (Prospect) had 6 rebounds and 4 blocks.
Harper won 90-73 at Elgin as Fred Taylor (Conant) scored 32 points and Rhodes chipped in 14. The Hawks are in St. Louis for a tournament this weekend.
Netting honors: Sophomore Lisa LaMasse (Hoffman Estates) was chosen as N4C volleyball MVP. LaMasse set four Harper career records for kills (758), blocks (351), blocks per game (1.48) and hitting efficiency (25.2 percent).
Harper also had outside hitter Christy Lima, setter Nikki Maize and right side hitter Aprille Richter selected to the N4C all-conference team.
Lima (Rolling Meadows) had 427 kills, Maize (Elk Grove) had 1,106 assists and 548 digs and Richter (Hoffman Estates) had 71 aces, 418 digs and 254 kills.
Back on the mat: Harper opened its wrestling season last weekend with Mike Dace (165 pounds), Darius Williams (174) and Shea Gerardot (184) winning titles at the Stevens Point Open.
Harper will be at the University of Missouri Open on Sunday.