St. Charles + lacrosse = super power...times 2

Good thing Alisa Skulazacek wasn't wielding her stick when the teacher asked about her St. Charles LAX shirt.

"What is that, is that kind of like track?"

Skulazacek is a St. Charles North senior and a co-captain on the squad officially known as St. Charles Women's Lacrosse, presently a 33-member club that co-ops with St. Charles East.

Because she's polite and because girls can't check with their sticks like boys can, Skulazacek let the teacher off easy.

"It has some of the same letters in it, I guess," she said.

The girls squad is getting some of the same letters - think collegiate divisions - and numbers as the more established St. Charles Lacrosse boys team, which was a game away from the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association finals the last three seasons.

Last season, the girls' ninth as a club in this Illinois High School Association Emerging Sport, St. Charles finished 14-2 and won the DuPage Upstate Eight Conference at 7-0. Conference foes include Neuqua Valley, Naperville North, Naperville South and Wheaton United. Metea Valley should join in 2011.

With six games left including today's in Wheaton, the St. Charles girls are 11-2 and ranked sixth in the state.

"As I have asked our team to put together the 'golden objective,' I'd say 99.9 percent of the team said they thought we could repeat as conference champions and finish in the top five for the state," said head coach Peter Bogle.

His daughter, Katie, is a co-captain along with Skulazacek, Regis College-bound senior Mackenzie Graham and junior Meghan Brady, the top scorer. Brady attends St. Charles East, the others North.

Peter Bogle was born in Hartford, Conn., and played four years at The College of Wooster in Ohio. The East remains ahead of the Midwest in lacrosse - out of 2,050 teams accorded computer rankings on the national LaxPower website, St. Charles pulls in at No. 526 - but the margin is narrowing.

"It's going gangbusters," Peter Bogle said. "In my opinion - I played in college, high school and middle school - it's where it was back East about 15 years ago. It continues to grow in the East, but out here we're seeing double-digit growth."

Skulazacek, who will play next year at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich., enjoys it immensely.

"I've played a lot of sports in my life, and lacrosse is the one sport that no matter if we lose I always want to get on the field and give it my all," she said.

"I love it. No matter how many times I get pushed down, I want to get back up."

That's the spirit on the St. Charles boys side, too. Three straight seasons New Trier has eliminated St. Charles in the IHSLA semifinals.

LaxPower currently rates 10-1 St. Charles No. 65 in the country (New Trier is 31st) after Tuesday's 12-1 win over Neuqua Valley. The boys host Geneva on senior night Thursday at St. Charles North and will close the regular season against five teams ranked in Illinois' top 10.

"I wouldn't say we're playing to the level where we could be at, but right now we're doing pretty good," said St. Charles North senior Pat Killeen, who like teammates Dom Imbordino and Ben Dvorak will be playing at Division I programs next year.

"I think we just have a family bond, and everybody's been together for such a long time," Killeen said. "We know each other's strengths and we're putting it together for the main goal - to go to state."

'Making the Effort'Three-time Emmy award-winning sportscaster Greg Gumbel will share his motivational thoughts and ideas from the world of sports at 7 p.m. Thursday at St. Francis High School.The topic of Gumbel's presentation is "Making the Effort.""He's watched athletic events for 45 years. I think he's seen a lot of great efforts," said St. Francis football coach Greg Purnell. He and Gumbel were baseball teammates when they attended Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. Purnell assembled a hall of fame coaching career in Dubuque before taking over the St. Francis football program in 2007. Another great effort came with the Spartans' 5A championship in 2008.Tickets are free for Gumbel's address at St. Francis' Kuhn Fine Arts Center, but must be picked up in advance from the school's main office at 2130 W. Roosevelt Road, Wheaton. For details, call Kathy Henning at (630) 668-5800, ext. 1100."This is a great opportunity for the western suburbs," Purnell said, "to hear one of the famous sportscasters of all time."A bit of good newsKaneland basketball coach Brian Johnson remained positive even as he joined District 303's 98 nontenured teachers given layoff notices on March 22. His attitude was rewarded Monday when he and the others were brought back under the school board's agreement to a salary freeze for the 2010-11 school year."I know everybody's really excited," Johnson said beforehand, as he was the high jump official Saturday at Kaneland's Peterson Prep Invitational track meet."When the teachers were asked to step up, the veterans were looking out for the new teachers in the district. Everybody worked together. It was just a nice situation," said Johnson, in his first year teaching physical education, speech and driver's education at Kaneland High."Everybody had a common goal and that was for the students, and they knew that having the teachers there and not overloading classrooms and stuff like that was the best way to go."Johnson came to D303 after a year at West Aurora - where his wife, Katie, also was laid off and has not been reinstated. Whether it's around his wife or his basketball players, Johnson remained positive and maintained a business-as-usual attitude."If I get upset or I'm negative about it, it goes not only to the players, but that negativeness goes to my wife in the household," Johnson said. "You've just got to stay as positive as possible. My thought was, I'm just going to do the best job I can and let the chips fall where they fall. I tell the kids that all the time during games. Leave it all on the floor and whatever happens, happens. That's the kind of attitude I try to take."A man for both seasonsAurora University's men's golf team, featuring West Aurora graduate Brandon Vicory and Marmion grad Alex Kline-Wedeen in the scoring rotation, is honing its chops before playing in the NCAA Division III Championships in Hershey, Pa., May 11-14. It's Aurora's first individual team sport to make an NCAA championship appearance since the Spartans joined the NCAA in 1982.Qualifying for the golf championship included results taken both from last fall and this spring. "We celebrated in the middle of October - that's when the conference tournament was - but we still had to get ready for spring because the spring (tournament) is what determines if you go to nationals or not," said Vicory, a scrambler with about a 4 handicap.Aurora University won the Northern Athletics Conference meet last fall by 10 strokes - Vicory was the NAC men's player of the year - and though the Spartans finished third to Edgewood College in the NAC Spring Automatic Qualifier Meet over April 19-20, their edge in the fall gave them a 2-stroke advantage.Thus, the sweet-as-chocolate trip to Hershey."It's going to be a good time. We hope we can compete," said Vicory, a sophomore. "We've looked at the scores from last year and we feel like if we play well we can finish pretty good."