Benet grad Tchoua strong inside for Indy basketball
At 6-foot-7 and 240 pounds, the man in the middle …
University of Indianapolis senior center Kendrick Tchoua (Benet Academy) earned his second straight selection to the Great Lakes Valley Conference men’s basketball first-team. In 2023 he was GLVC player of the year.
After Saturday’s tournament semifinal loss, Tchoua averaged 12.6 points on 65% shooting, plus 7.6 rebounds. Of his 229 rebounds, 125 came off the offensive glass.
Also on the GLVC all-defensive squad, Tchoua ranks third all-time at Indianapolis in field goal percentage, fifth in rebounds, seventh in blocked shots, 15th in points. Tchoua’s 142 games played leads all Greyhounds.
Lewis University junior guard Beau Frericks (Cary-Grove) also made GLVC first team, scoring a team-high 16 points per game with 49 3-pointers entering Sunday’s conference championship game. Lewis’ forward Ryan Renfro (Glenbard West) made the All-Freshman Team.
On the women’s side in the GLVC, Quincy guard Mariann Blass (York) made the All-Freshman Team. She led the Hawks with 36 3-pointers, finished third on the team at 9.2 points a game, and led Quincy’s top rotation in 3-point shooting percentage.
A player we’ve followed with interest is Lewis senior forward Kathryn Schmidt (Burlington Central), a second-team GLVC pick. The daughter of Burlington Central boys track coach Mike Schmidt, “Kat” returned to the court within seven months of April 2023 ACL surgery.
Schmidt is among four Lewis players scoring in double figures and playing at least 32 minutes a game. The team’s rebounds and blocks leader, she helped the Flyers reach Sunday afternoon’s GLVC Championship game for a third straight season.
Southern Illinois junior swimmer Alex Santiago (Buffalo Grove) merits a repeat mention here, because he tore it up at the Mid-American Conference men’s swimming and diving championships March 6-9 in Carbondale.
He set MAC records winning the 50-yard (19.12 seconds) and 100-yard freestyle (42.42) and added a third individual title in the 200 freestyle (1 minutes, 36.63 seconds). He anchored a school-record 200 medley relay, the Salukis’ winning 400 medley relay in MAC-record time, and led off a victorious 200 freestyle relay.
Santiago had enough left to return for the final event, the 400 freestyle relay, to anchor a winning, pool-record time to clinch Southern Illinois’ third-place finish.
In Notre Dame’s baseball home opener on March 5 in South Bend, an 11-2 win over Purdue, sophomore infielder Estevan Moreno (Montini) became the first Fighting Irish player to hit 3 home runs in three different games.
Moreno hit a solo home run on the first pitch he saw, then added solo shots in the sixth and eighth innings.
Moreno hit 3 home runs March 2 at Tennessee Tech, and also hit 3 against Virginia last season as a freshman.