College Achievers: Nardulli, Gryzik getting it done in UIC’s late-season push
Neuqua Valley High School graduate Katelyn Nardulli’s laser into the middle of the net gave University of Illinois Chicago’s women’s soccer team a 4-3 edge in penalty kicks Thursday against Murray State, sending the Flames to their first Missouri Valley Conference Championship. It’s just the Flames’ second conference tournament appearance, finishing as runner-up in the 2019 Horizon League title game.
In Sunday’s championship, UIC beat Illinois State in another penalty kick shootout in Normal after the teams battled to a 0-0 tie through regulation and two overtime periods.
A No. 6 seed in the MVC tournament, UIC needed a goal in the 86th minute against Murray State to tie the score 1-1 and send the game into the first of two scoreless overtime sessions before the shootout.
Senior midfielder Hannah Gryzik (Elk Grove) converted the first of the Flames’ four successful penalty kicks. Starting all 20 games, Gryzik leads UIC with 2 game-winning goals and is second on the team with 8 points on 3 goals and 2 assists. She added another penalty kick in Sunday’s title match.
A graduate student and midfielder, Nardulli has 2 goals on the season for UIC, which entered Sunday with an overall record of 8-7-5, 3-3-3 in the MVC. Her first goal of the season, in a 1-0 win over Northern Iowa on the last day of the regular season, helped clinch the Flames’ spot in the MVC playoffs. Nardulli scored the tying goal in the quarterfinals against Indiana State off an assist by Gryzik, who scored the game-winner in UIC’s 2-1 victory.
The Gorbatenko update
Kelly Gorbatenko (Barrington) is a junior forward and an alternate captain for the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team, the NCAA’s consensus No. 1 team and defending national champion. An all-academic student-athlete as a sophomore both in the Big Ten Conference and in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, Gorbatenko scored 15 goals with 23 assists for 38 points in 2024-25. Last summer she was chosen for USA Hockey’s 2025 U.S. Collegiate Women’s Select Team.
This season through 12 games Gorbatenko has scored 8 goals with 9 assists and is a plus-16. The day after Wisconsin’s first loss of the season, 5-1 to No. 3 Minnesota on Halloween, Gorbatenko scored 2 goals and assisted on another in the Badgers’ 7-2 revenge win over Minnesota. She has two sisters as teammates on Wisconsin, freshmen Nicole and Rachel.
Finishing strong
On Oct. 20, the final day of the fall slate for the Northern Illinois University men’s golf team, sophomore Patrick Raupp (Prospect) tied his career low with a 5-under par 67 at Quail Valley Golf Club in Vero Beach, Fla. Scoring 7 birdies, in one day the two-time high school all-stater moved up 34 places on the leaderboard, and helped the Huskies tie their second-lowest single-round team score in program history.
On a roll
Two area students have emerged atop the Lewis University women’s bowling team. Freshman Addison Rathmann (Schaumburg) placed ninth with a score of 983 (196.6 average) at the Windy City Classic at River Rand Bowl in Des Plaines. On Oct. 23, senior Katharine Svehla (York) earned Great Lakes Valley Conference women’s bowler of the week. She bowled a 989 (197.8 average) at Youngstown State’s Penguin Classic, and led the Flyers with a scored of 1,029 (171.5 average) at the Western Shootout in Indianapolis.
Among the world’s best
In high school Lexi Janiak was a little out of Daily Herald turf at Plainfield South, but she’s a senior wrestler at Aurora University. On Oct. 25 at the Under-23 World Championships in Novi Sad, Serbia, Janiak won the women’s freestyle bronze medal at 59 kilograms. It was her third world medal in the last three years. Janiak shared Aurora University’s 2024-25 female athlete of the year award with runner Deedee Maldonado (East Aurora) after Janiak won the 131-pound national title and went 29-1 on the season. The National Wrestling Coaches Association currently ranks her No. 1 in the nation at 131. At Plainfield South, Janiak won the 2022 Illinois High School Association 131-pound title, one reason the National Wrestling Hall of Fame gave her its high school excellence award for Illinois.