Buffalo Grove’s DiPrima nets national acclaim
Over the past four seasons, Buffalo Grove’s Andrea DiPrima batted a school record .522 as one of state’s best softball players.
The Northwestern recruit has also gained national attention.
DiPrima was named the National High School Softball Senior Athlete of the Year for 2011 by the National High School Coaches Association.
Past recipients in softball include Cat Osterman, Alicia Hollowell, Anjelica Selden, and this year’s NCAA College World Series MVP, winning pitcher Dallas Escobedo of Arizona State.
In 2010, DiPrima was awarded first-team All-America honors by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association, which is rare for a junior.
DiPrima holds virtually every season and career offensive record at Buffalo Grove.
Last year, she batted .583 with 10 home runs, 43 RBI and 67 hits — all school season records — and also had 16 doubles, a slugging percentage of 1.035 and 33 runs scored.
As a sophomore, she batted .542 and set another school record with 23 doubles, recording 65 hits.
As a freshman, DiPrima batted .459 with 15 doubles, 50 hits and 29 RBI.
Through her junior year, she owned career records for batting average (. 529), hits (182), doubles (54), home runs (13), extra-base hits (77) and runs batted in (95).
This season, DiPrima batted batted .495 with a team-high 45 hits and was named the Bison MVP.
Her .522 career batting average puts her at 16th in state history, according to the IHSA. Her 227 career hits placed her seventh.
A four-year starter at guard on the Bison basketball team, DiPrima scored 1,027 points In her career and played on a state tournament team as a freshman. Also an outstanding student, she ranks in the top 3 percent of her class with a 5.28 GPA (on a 5.0 scale).
Rugby
Reigning Division national champion Army is now the closest thing the country has to a women’s collegiate 7s champion, having put away two-time national champion Penn State 14-5 in the USA Sevens Collegiate Rugby Championship title match.
One of the players on Army’s championship squad was Cadet Sergeant Kaitlyn Kelly (St. Viator), who along with her West Point Rugby sisters completed the first undefeated Rugby season in USMA history.
Against Penn State, the Black Knights’ jumped out to a 33-19 half time lead and held on to win with tremendous goal-line defense.
Army got to the finals by beating New Mexico and North Carolina by a combined score of 127 to 5. In the semifinals they overcame a highly rated BYU Cougar team 31-19.
Since Kelly moved to the starting fly half position her freshman year, the team has only lost twice — to national champion Stanford in 2009, and to Penn State in 2010.
Soccer
Midfielder Clare Korleski (Hersey), midfielder Agnes Stankiewicz (Prospect) and defender Maddie Conlin (Rolling Meadows) were named to the first team of the Chicago Fire ll State, All-Academic girls soccer team for 2011. The nominations were made by their high school coaches.
The Chicago Fire recognized the first-team members at the IHSSCA honors banquet on June 9.
5K run
Just a week out of high school, Christina Gastfield (Rolling Meadows) was clocked in 17:39.38 in the 5K at the Midwest Distance Gala held at Benedictine University in Lisle. That time qualified her for the USATF Junior National Championships to be held June 24 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
In the IHSA girls state track finals last month in Charleston, Gastfield finished third in the 3200-meter run.