All-around excellence would make Jirschele, Barrington perfectly happy

One missed question came between Barrington senior Alex Jirschele and a perfect score of 36 on the ACT.

"Two of my good friends (including basketball player Owen Prunskis) got 36s and I thought, 'This is terrible,'" said Jirschele of his brush with perfection. "That doesn't apply just to academics."

Jirschele also strives for it on the football field as a starting linebacker. And last year was anything but perfect for the Broncos as they went 3-6 for their first losing season since 2001.

"That's definitely been a big thing all year, especially when it gets to this point of the summer," Jirschele said. "People are looking for something to motivate them and that's definitely been motivating."

Jirschele won't get any disagreement from senior teammate Pat Bolger, who is part of an experienced offensive line with senior Jimmy Kristof and junior Dan Voltz.

"There's always been that in our mind, just the fact we didn't finish a lot of games," Bolger said. "In the off-season we made a point that we didn't want to be 3-6 again and we needed to finish games.

"I felt like I had to step up during the off-season as one of the returning starters to try to do my best to get people together."

Bolger has a 3.4 grade point average on a 4.0 scale and scored 24 on the ACT. He wants to study business and said he has an offer to play at Air Force.

Jirschele also wants to study business and has a weighted 4.61 GPA on a 5.0 scale and an unweighted 3.98 on a 4.0. Duke and Notre Dame are his top two college choices.

Jirschele realizes that probably means the end of a football career that just started his freshman year. One of the big things is to stay on the field after missing big chunks of his sophomore (broken knuckle) and junior (torn MCL in left knee) seasons.

"I've had some bad luck and I'd like to get past that," Jirschele said.

That would help make for a perfect ending.