Here's the kicker: Ewald's a top recruit

Among the football players sure to be watched in Illinois next season is one who stands 5-foot-10 and weighs all of 160 pounds.

Waubonsie Valley place-kicker Mitch Ewald, a junior, is the No. 3 kicker nationwide for the Class of 2009, according to Chris Sailer, a West Coast-based kicking guru whose references can draw scholarship offers.

Chris Sailer Kicking's sixth annual National Kicking and Snapping Event drew a few hundred prep special-teamers to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Jan. 12-13.

It also drew several dozen college coaches, who monitored accuracy, hang time, height, distance and explosion of the ball off contact.

Anticipating the event, Ewald -- he once kicked a 63-yard field goal at a camp at Downers Grove South -- switched from kicking off a block to the ground a month before the camp.

"Chris Sailer was really impressed," Ewald said. "He said a bunch of good words about me."

News traveled. Soon Ewald had a Big Ten coach paddling around after him.

Also recognized as a 4½ star kicker -- one of four nationally to earn the highest rating so far for the Class of '09 -- by Kohl's Professional Kicking Camp, out of Waukesha, Wis., Ewald was Mr. Consistent for Waubonsie Valley in 2007.

He converted 29 of 30 extra-point attempts and was 6 of 11 on field goals with a long of 37 yards. Seventy-five percent of his kickoffs went for touchbacks.

Ewald is making DVDs of his kicking skills. He plans to send them to between 15 and 20 colleges representing the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mid-American conferences.

A soccer convert, Ewald tired of that sport and pursued football. He started out as a tight end, then volunteered to kick.

"They just asked who could kick," Ewald said.

He can.

"I love it, no doubt," he said. "At first when I started kicking I thought, this is weird being a kicker. This is goofy, what am I doing?

"But it's kind of grown on me. Like, I could do something with this. I've developed a passion for it."

Goooaaaal achieved

Following up a prior tidbit, Wheaton Academy junior Leah Fortune has been selected as one of 17 players on the Under-20 Brazilian National Soccer Team.

Born in Brazil to American parents, the 17-year-old dual citizen was the youngest player to be invited by Brazil U-20 coach Kleiton Lima.

Tryouts were held in Teresópolis, Brazil. Fortune just got back Wednesday but will return the week of Feb. 11 to continue training for the South American Championships in March.

If Brazil wins that, which it did in 2004 and 2006, it will advance to the Under-20 Women's World Cup in December.

Pole brothers

At the Carle/Health Alliance Classic indoor track meet last Saturday in Champaign, Illinois State sophomore Nick Ragusa, a Neuqua Valley graduate, finished fifth in pole vault with a personal-best height of 15 feet, 9 inches.

That was one place and 4 inches above his brother Matt, a senior at Illinois.

Double the fun

In tabulating the state winners for the 14th annual Wendy's High School Heisman, Hinsdale Central's Emily Cleary and Immaculate Conception's Meg Kowieski and D.J. Abuy were among Illinois' 20 finalists. IC was the only school with two finalists.

As coaches say, they must do things the right way.

Coach Jean Field's Knights earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association's Team Academic Award for the 14th time in 15 years. A team needs to maintain a minimum 3.30 grade-point average on a 4-point scale to do that.

What's up…

…Chris Derrick

The Neuqua Valley senior, the inaugural Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year, enters the indoor season fresh off a personal-best time of 4 minutes 14.84 seconds in the junior mile at the Boston Indoor Games. In his first competitive season as a Wildcats freshman, he was the seventh runner on the sophomore cross country team. The Stanford recruit has a grade-point average of 4.57.

What's enabled you to improve?

"Really, I think three things -- I developed physically, good coaching and I was consistent with my training beginning my freshman year through my sophomore year."

You were 5-foot-8 as a freshman and now you're 6-1. Has the growth helped?

"Actually, you're generally better off to be more like 5-8. But the physical maturity, I was still very much a little kid. So gaining physical maturity and physical strength (helped)."

Choice of running shoes?

"Asics 2120 and DS Trainers."

Your father, Richard, was a golfer and your mother, Janet, played basketball. How'd you get into running?

"I was playing basketball and I was not too quick and not very strong and I couldn't jump very high. I could shoot, but I knew I wasn't going to go anywhere with that. One of the parents told us about a (Neuqua Valley) cross country camp. At first I was adamantly opposed, but I stuck with it."

You won the Class 3A individual cross country title and led Neuqua to the team title, you repeated that feat at Nike Team Nationals, you placed second at the National Foot Locker Championships and you set nine course records in 2007. What are you most proud of?

"Winning the national championship with the team is obviously the most satisfying."

Do you have an off-season?

"I take a week or two off between cross country and track, and then start running again."

Any hobbies?

"Sleeping, eating, hanging out with friends, ultimate Frisbee, basketball."

What pushes you toward your goals?

"Just desire, I guess. I know what it takes to succeed and that's consistent hard work and there's no way around that. If I want it, I've got to go get it."