Griffin, Marmion celebrate health triumph

It truly was a blessed end of the week and the beginning of a new one for Marmion boys lacrosse coach Kevin Griffin.

Having dealt with colon cancer for the past seven months, Griffin received word Thursday that he was cancer free. On Sunday, his team, students and staff of Marmion and members of the general community all came together to help raise awareness and financial support for the Colon Cancer Alliance.

“This whole thing today means a lot to me,” Griffin said. “Dealing with this for the past seven months has not been easy.”

Approximately 60 kids, a mixture of lacrosse players and students, had their heads shaved during the fundraiser. A few dads of Marmion players, as well as some siblings, also participated. Even Marmion athletic director Joe Chivalri stopped by to offer his support and get a trim.

By the time the fundraiser had concluded late Sunday afternoon, more than $6,000 had been raised.

“School is all about these kinds of things,” Griffin said. “We do the Feed the Starving Children, the St. Charles parade and we’ll do a couple car washes. It’s all about building men, and not just lacrosse players, and this is a testament to that.”

Sporting extremely short blonde hair, junior Ben Glonek was still getting used to his new ’do when he spoke about coming to together as a community to support Griffin.

“It was just a good thing to do to show we had his back,” Glonek said. “He never lost his hair, but we still wanted to do this. It showed we have unity and continue to grow as a team.”

The Cadets opened their season last Saturday with a 3-0 victory against Notre Dame. The team dropped a pair of decisions to Notre Dame a season ago, so the shutout was a nice boost to the team’s confidence to start the season.

Zach McNally picked up the shutout in goal and sophomore Sam Ford scored a pair of fourth quarter goals to lead the Cadets.

Marmion scheduled to travel to Minooka on Thursday but the game was postponed due to poor weather. Instead of taking the field in cold, wet and windy conditions, it gave Griffin a chance to count his blessings and get ready for Sunday.

Now the Cadets will hope for warmer weather. Not just so they can play lacrosse, but so their freshly cut heads can stay warm.

Spring Break champs:

Lake Zurich won the three-day Hoffman Estates Spring Break tournament with an 8-3 victory against Vernon Hills on Saturday. Lake Zurich opened the tournament on Thursday with a 12-1 victory against Taft and an 8-4 decision over host Hoffman Estates.

The Bears dominated possession throughout the tournament.

“We had to have had the ball 70 to 80 percent of the time on our side,” Lake Zurich coach Kyle Dresser said. “Against Vernon Hills I don’t think they got the ball over midfield in the first half.”

Ryan Faetz was the leading scorer for the Bears during the tournament, tallying 8 goals. Ross Williams (6), Tom Logan (5) and Sean Learas (3) also had big offensive tournaments. Goalie Markus Hofer wasn’t too busy in goal, but still managed 5 saves.

“It was our first games of the season so we got to put into play what we’ve being doing in practice,” Dresser said. “I wasn’t sure how they would respond, but they played well, ran the offense and controlled the game from start to finish.”

Vernon Hills beat Champaign Centennial and West Chicago to advance to the title game. Tyler Peterson scored 5 goals against Champaign Centennial and Mike Glover had 4 goals against West Chicago. Vernon Hills coach Brian Miller also praised the play of goalie Cody Christie and defenders Tim Claussen, Tyler Amidei and Brad Feinman.

“We looked pretty good,” Miller said. “We’ve got a lot of a new guys. It’s a lot of first- and second-year players so it was good to get out and give them an opportunity.”

Heck of a gauge:

Naperville North hosted New Trier on Thursday night, and there’s no other team that receive as much hype — and deservedly so, as the Trevians have won six consecutive state titles. New Trier beat the Huskies 16-8.

“It was a tough game for our boys,” Naperville North coach Kevin Benages said. “New Trier is well coached and their guys play hard all the time.”

The Huskies created scoring opportunities against the Trevians but were unable to finish on enough occasions to upset the defending state champions.

“We tell our boys on offense that they are the most dangerous players on the field because they are the ones who created opportunity,” Benages said. “We hit a ton of pipe and got the looks we wanted offensively but did not capitalize.”

Defensively, the Huskies surrendered 16 goals, but it proved to be a learning experience both regarding stamina and avoiding the fastbreak.

“We played 33 minutes in our zone, and this wears down our defenders and increases the percentages of miscommunication and defensive breakdowns,” Benages said. “We gave up at least 5 fastbreak goals, which hurts, but 6v6 I thought we played them tough and our junior goalie Jeremy Voyda made some stellar saves at crucial times.”

Junior attackman Conor Stout-Shoger and senior midfielder Max Obriecht both scored 3 goals. It was a personal best for Obriecht. Zac Novak and Brian Hibsch both contributed a goal apiece to round out the scoring for the Huskies.

“This year’s group has the potential to develop into a good team, but we need to have more off ball movement and cutters to the ball to be successful,” Benages said. “We look to learn from our mistakes and experience and improve as we progress through the season towards our team goals and state.”

Mewborn out, newbie in:

Neuqua Valley had a strong finish in last week’s North/South Shootout, beating town rivals Naperville Central and Naperville North. The team was then dealt a blow when senior goalie Taylor Mewborn broke his hand in practice. Mewborn is expected to be out for approximately four to six weeks.

Mewborn’s absence created an opportunity for freshman goalie Sam Sanko, who stepped in during Wednesday’s contest against Geneva and was solid in a 10-2 victory.

“We played solid defense and had superb goaltending from our frosh goalie,” Neuqua Valley coach Mark Cummings said.

Dario Rovito and Peter Scavetta each had 4 goals in the victory.

Weathering the weather:

Cold and rainy weather forced the postponement of a good early-season rivalry matchup between Grayslake North and Grayslake Central. The Knights will undoubtedly have better fortunes this week as they’re heading to Florida for a spring break trip where they’ll play three games.

Mother Nature certainly played havoc with the schedules of other lacrosse teams last week as April is likely to be crowded with rescheduled contests.