Glogovsky makes the most of her big basketball decision

She could easily and literally be a big part of it right now.

Erin Glogovsky could be teaming with fellow 6-footers and old friends Sarah Boothe and Lory Shaw to give Warren's girls basketball team a front line featuring three college-bound players, all of whom can finesse and muscle.

Instead, while Boothe and Shaw have the Blue Devils headed to another upper-20-win campaign, their former teammate Glogovsky is trying to help Carmel Catholic avoid a losing season.

The senior center returned Tuesday night from missing back-to-back games to an ankle injury, as well as being on a mandatory school retreat, but her 10 points couldn't prevent the Corsairs from falling to 11-11 with a 38-35 loss to host Benet Academy.

It was Glogovsky's first game since officially signing a letter of intent this week with the University of Illinois at Springfield, which is making the move from NAIA to NCAA Division II status.

"In a perfect season, we'd be 14-7," coach John Ryan said before his Corsairs boarded their bus to LaGrange. "Our other games were not winnable games."

In a perfect basketball world for Glogovsky, she and teammates would be winning more. But she certainly has no regrets about transferring to Carmel her freshman year after spending only about two months at Warren's O'Plaine Campus.

She had played with Warren's freshman basketball team that summer.

"I didn't get to take the (entrance) test (for Carmel) because we were out of town," Glogovsky said. "So I got put on a waiting list. Then it so just happened that two months in, when I was going to Warren, I got a phone call saying there was an opening."

She enrolled at Carmel just before the start of the basketball season. Which meant she had to sit out her freshman season, but not her sophomore one.

She practiced with the Jenny Eckhart-led varsity squad that whole winter, played plenty of varsity minutes the following year, and has been a starter for Ryan the last two seasons.

"Erin's strong," Ryan said of his best post defender. "She uses her strength (defensively). She muscles people."

The 6-foot Glogovsky serves as a captain, has scored double digits in several games -- including 21 points in one game -- and has provided Carmel a physical presence under the boards. She was named all-tournament at Mundelein over Thanksgiving.

"She does a lot of things for us," Ryan said. "She rebounds the ball, she's our second-leading scorer (behind Tiffany Hendrickson), and she provides leadership out on the floor. She calms the girls down. She's like a big sister to them out there."

Glogovsky likely would providing the same things and filling the same role for Warren. But then, going to Carmel was always the plan.

"I played with them all from seventh grade until freshman year," Glogovsky, a Wadsworth resident, said of Warren's varsity players. "I played with Shana Shepherd and Lory Shaw at Viking on our grade-school team. And then Sarah Boothe, Erin Norwood, Joree Green, Kristin Mierzejewski, Kaitlyn Heffernan, all the rest of them I played with on the Gurnee travel team.

"I was good friends with all of them."

Still is.

"I still see them like all the time because we obviously play each other and we're in the area," Glogovsky said. "So we go to each other's games."

Since Glogovsky's sophomore year, Carmel is 32-47. Warren -- led by the 6-5 Boothe, who's signed with Stanford, and the 6-2 Shaw, who's committed to Wisconsin-Green-Bay -- is 77-11.

Glogovsky isn't jealous. She's proud.

"I'm happy for them," she said. "I love that Sarah got a full ride to Stanford because she deserves it. She worked hard for it."

Glogovsky worked hard for her own scholarship from Illinois at Springfield. She had interest from Division I programs such as Coastal Carolina and Bradley, but she understands she's not Sarah Boothe. Even if she made the team at a bigger school, she might not never see the court.

For the UIS Prairie Stars, she'll get the chance to be a star, or at least play regularly.

"I'd rather play, and I knew I'd probably be a practice player (at a bigger school)," said Glogovsky, a high honors student who plans to study pre-med, with hopes of someday being a physician's assistant.

"(Illinois at Springfield) is kind of small, but I like small schools, because I go to a small high school."

Three years ago, she went from good high school to good high school.

It's been all good.

"It was tough sophomore (basketball) year," Glogovsky said of the Corsairs' 6-22 season. "We were real young. (Almost) our whole team consisted of sophomores and freshmen. It was tough, but after that I think it's been pretty good because we learned a lot from it. It's been a lot of hard work, but it's been fun."

And she's had a big part in it.