Creating memories on the basketball court
Good stories have long shelf lives.
Feb. 20 was senior night for Wheaton North's boys basketball team. The Falcons hosted Naperville Central in a game to decide the DuPage Valley Conference title.
The Falcons' seniors were announced including four-year team manager Ryne Stolarz, who in uniform escorted his parents, Jack and Nancy, onto the court.
When he's not helping with the Wheaton North varsity, Ryne is a guard with the District 200 Flying Tigers, a Special Olympics basketball team made up of players from Wheaton North and Wheaton Warrenville South.
"Everybody loves him in the school," said Falcons coach Jim Nazos. "He's our manager, but he's our biggest fan, no doubt about it. And if you asked him, he would know every statistic."
The main stat on Feb. 20 was Naperville Central's 65-55 win that forged a tie with the Falcons for first place.
That decided, with nine seconds left Nazos sent in Stolarz for a final shot.
Enticing the crowd with pumped fist, Stolarz accepted an inbounds pass from Steve Pierotti. He shot from 15 feet.
"It looked good, right in line from where he was, but it went right off the back of the rim," Nazos said.
Win or lose, as they say, it's how you play the game.
"When he went into the game the applause he got, it was pretty easy to forget you were losing at the time," Nazos said. "It was one of those moments that if you were there you never would forget."
Cross country
An interesting weekend is shaping up for Waubonsie Valley junior Shakeia Pinnick and Neuqua Valley senior Monica Jakutyte.
Both track athletes competed at the Upstate Eight Conference girls track meet on Thursday.
On Friday, thanks to IHSA approval, they were bound for Landover, Md., site of the Nike Indoor Nationals on March 15-16.
This winter Jakutyte went a personal-best 5 feet, 7 inches in high jump, her event at Nike.
Pinnick will compete in the pentathlon and in the open 800-meter race. She's ranked second in the first event, fifth in the second. Pinnick's parents are from Maryland; she'll have relatives from six Eastern states watching her.
Pinnick's time of 2 minutes, 16 seconds in the 800 leads the state, according to the Illinois Prep Top Times. In fact, the IPTT leaderboard has her either first or second in everything on the track through 800 meters.
Choose your weapon
The fields were set for the Class 3A and 4A boys basketball 3-point shooting and dunking contests at Carver Arena in Peoria. Preliminary rounds were Thursday afternoon with the finals Friday.
St. Francis junior Clint Pierce will shoot 3s. Fenton senior Gozie Umeadi is the sole area 3A dunker.
Class 4A has deeper representation. Three-point contestants include Wheaton Warrenville South's Rob Grabek, York's Tom Donahoe and Glenbard West's John Shurna, who made 13 of 15 at East Aurora last week, narrowly topping Donahoe's 11.
Shurna also is on the 4A dunk list, joined by slam master Milton Colbert of Willowbrook and Downers Grove North's Deon Thomas.
Commit to the Renegades
We recently checked in on the Wheaton-West Wild hockey team, which reached the semifinals of Blackhawk Cup's Varsity Combined division.
The Wild on March 10 lost 5-3 to the AWF Renegades, which gets its talent from Addison Trail, Willowbrook, Fenton and Glenbard East.
Coach Andrew Schlie's Renegades (34-8-3), ranked fifth in the Illinois Suburban High School League, had a chore ahead.
Perennial power and No. 1 ranked Rockford was the opponent in Wednesday's Blackhawk Cup title game at the Edge in Bensenville.
Renegades captains are Rob Zarko of Fenton, Ricky Vaca and Chris Anderson of Willowbrook, and Mike D'Ambrose of Addison Trail.
Icing…on the cake
The Chicago Blackhawk Alumni Association recently announced its 2008 Keith Magnuson Scholarship recipients.
Collecting a cool $5,000 per year for four years, plus inclusion into the Blackhawk Alumni mentoring program, are Neuqua Valley's Sean Mills and Naperville North's Daniel Moir.
The final word
There were puffy, moist eyes in the locker room at Chicago State University after Neuqua Valley's boys basketball team lost to Richards in a Class 4A supersectional game on Wednesday.
There remained much solace to be taken from an outstanding season that included an Upstate Eight Conference title and the first sectional title in program history.
Wildcats coach Todd Sutton took a few moments to reflect on his players.
"We couldn't be any more proud of them," he said outside the locker room. "They were great teammates, they matured so much. It was a pleasure to go to practice, and that doesn't always happen.
"It was kind of (associate head coach Bob) Vozza and my honor to be the coach. Such a fun group, a group that worked hard.
"We only promise two things," Sutton concluded. "One, they're going to work very hard; and, two, they're going to have a lot of great memories. And I guarantee they had a whole lot of great memories."