Soccer excellence helps court greatness
When Jacquie Discipio watches Zoe Swift play basketball, she sees skills that can't be taught in practice.
“I've probably said it 100 times,” said the Naperville North coach, “but Zoe can find people before they know they are open.”
That vision, that flare, that creativity is useful on the basketball court.
Skills born on the soccer field.
Swift, a sophomore at Naperville North, is one of several soccer standouts playing significant roles on their respective basketball teams this season.
Huskies teammate Shannon Bushman also plays for Naperville North's soccer team; Naperville Central junior Jill D'Amico is an outstanding soccer goalkeeper; Neuqua Valley senior Alexa Wilde has committed to Baylor for soccer; West Chicago's Meagan Radloff has signed with Eastern Illinois; and Lisle's Nicole Urban was the leading goal scorer for a team that took fourth in the state last spring.
Going back the last few years, Hinsdale Central basketball star Toni Kokenis scored the winning goal in the state championship soccer match.
It should be no surprise to see soccer players have success on the basketball court.
Skills such as moving without the ball, cutting and spacing that are huge elements of soccer translate well to the basketball court.
“Anybody that watches Zoe play is drawn to her speed and movement. She is just a dynamic player,” Discipio said. “She got that being on the soccer field.”
Alas, Discipio and other basketball coaches have had to share their kids with soccer.
Swift missed Naperville North's regional game last February, and three games so far this season due to commitments with U.S. Soccer's Olympic Develoment Program. D'Amico missed Naperville Central's game with Waubonsie Valley because of a soccer tournament in North Carolina.
Swift does give Discipio her soccer calendar before basketball season.
“I noticed what an influence Zoe had over the holiday tournament,” Discipio said. “Shannon had to work 20 times harder to facilitate the offense. Zoe helps those things out and I noticed it more when she's gone. It's a struggle and we are certainly better when she's on the court. We want to get the most out of her while she's with us.”
Swift's long-term future is in soccer. Discipio is hopeful she has two more years of basketball in her.
“Having her in our program, it certainly outweighs the times that she's gone,” Discipio said.
Missing the boat?: Few area players are off to as good a start as Glenbard South's Nevena Markovic.
The 6-foot-4 senior is averaging 19.4 points and 11.1 rebounds per game for the 9-0 Raiders, off to their best start since the 2004-05 season.
Markovic has scored 20-plus points in five games, leads the team in assists and is shooting free throws at an 83 percent clip. Raiders coach Julie Fonda raves about a kid who has developed her quickness and explosiveness in the post, and ability to take defenders off the dribble.
“She's gotten after it,” Fonda said. “She loves playing the game and it's obvious.”
Yet the only college to offer Markovic a scholarship up to this point is NAIA Olivet Nazarene. Fonda said other schools have “barked up the tree, but nobody has followed through.”
Fonda said she's sent over 300 e-mails to colleges about Markovic.
“You can praise her all you want; you have to see the kid in person,” Fonda said. “She's a great kid that has fallen through the cracks. You can't teach 6-4 and you can't teach a kid that size how to shoot the ball.”
IHSA geography strikes again: Fonda's Glenbard South teams have played regional games in Chicago the last three years.
She'd gladly accept the commute on the Eisenhower to the IHSA's alternative.
Instead the Raiders are in the same Class 3A St. Francis regional as top-ranked Montini. Sectional assignments were released this past week.
According to IHSA rules, if any school in a sectional field lies outside Cook, Kane, McHenry, DuPage and Lake counties, regionals are pre-assigned geographically.
That is the case here, as Belvidere, Belvidere North, Rockford East and Freeport are all in the Burlington Central sectional with Montini and Glenbard South.
It doesn't sit well with many coaches, Fonda included. Just last softball season Glenbard South was grouped in the same sectional with 3A powers Trinity and Riverside-Brookfield.
“If you don't laugh, you're going to cry. It's very frustrating,” Fonda said. “You know who this hurts the most is the kids. You want to give kids the opportunity to go as far as they can. Now one of us (Montini or Glenbard South) isn't going to a sectional and St. Francis is a good team, too.”
Fonda for one would like every team in the sectional seeded, and then grouped in regionals accordingly.
“Let us seed, and let teams travel,” Fonda said. “It's the state tournament, not conference.”
In another unrelated but noteworthy assignment, Trinity has bumped up to 4A and was put in a loaded sectional at York with Fenwick, Bartlett, Proviso East, West Chicago and Wheaton North. Trinity lost to Montini in the 3A supersectional last year. Its only loss this year is to Bartlett.