Last year’s Morgan Park vs. Brother Rice Kickoff Classic game at Chicago’s Soldier Field was so dramatic that it called for a rematch.
It’ll happen Aug. 28 at Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears. Again, a Morgan Park-Brother Rice matchup will be the featured night game in the city’s annual tripleheader which matches up a city school against a Chicago Catholic League school in each game.
Last year, Brother Rice held off Morgan Park for a 24-20 victory. In the other games, Lane Tech (11-3, Chicago Public Illini Red Bird champion) will face De La Salle (8-5, Catholic League White co-champ) in the opener at 2:30 p.m., and Catholic League Blue power Mt. Carmel (10-3 and a Class 8A semifinalist last year) will meet Simeon (6-4) at 5:15.
Brother Rice, which finished 9-3 last season and was a quarterfinalist in Class 8A, may be a contender in Catholic League Blue this season. The Crusaders tied Mt. Carmel and Loyola for second place last year, finishing one game behind league champ St. Rita. Among Rice‘s leaders this year is offensive lineman Andy Galikin.
Morgan Park (8-5) lost highly recruited defensive end Craig Drummond to graduation and the University of Mississippi, but the Mustangs, who tied Hubbard and Simeon for the Illini Prairie State title last season, do return senior quarterback and wide receiver Daron Brown. He has been offered a scholarship by Northern Illinois, and is attracting interest from several Big Ten schools, including Purdue and Ohio State.
In last year‘s game against Rice, Brown made his quarterback debut, and responded by throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for 201 yards as the Mustangs nearly overcame a 17-point deficit.
Running back Milton Greer, who has scholarship offers from Minnesota, Miami of Ohio and Western Michigan, is the offensive leader at Mt. Carmel now that graduated quarterback Jordan Lynch is at Northern Illinois. The Caravan won last year’s Kickoff Classic game over Curie, 49-7.
The Lane Tech-De La Salle game matches up teams that were in the Prep Bowl tournament last November.
Lane, which lost in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs, defeated Hubbard for the Public League championship and then lost to Loyola in the Prep Bowl final. Lane is led by linebacker Louis Trinca-Pasat, an Iowa recruit, and offensive lineman Laken Tomlinson, whose long list of scholarship offers includes Ohio State, Michigan State and Vanderbilt.
De La Salle was a Catholic League finalist last year, losing to Loyola in the title game.
More Football: Lynch at safety for USA team
Mt. Carmel quarterback Jordan Lynch, a Northern Illinois recruit, is starting at safety for Team USA in the IFAF Junior World Championship being played this week at Canton, Ohio.
Lynch was voted a team captain. Team USA will play Canada in the championship game at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium. The USA shut out France, 78-0, and Mexico, 55-0, to advance to the final.
Frank Lenti, Lynch’s coach at Mt. Carmel, is an assistant coach for Team USA.
Recruiting: Maine South’s Perez picks Indiana
Maine South’s Matt Perez jumped quickly on his first scholarship offer from a BCS school. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound running back gave Indiana a verbal commitment Wednesday.
Several other Big Ten and Mid-American Conference schools were interested in Perez, although until Indiana offered, North Dakota State was Perez’s only previous scholarship offer.
Perez ran for 1,145 yards and 22 touchdowns last season for Maine South’s unbeaten Class 8A championship team. He rushed for 119 yards and three touchdowns in the Hawks’ 41-21 win over Hinsdale Central in the 8A title game. He also caught 35 passes for 435 yards from quarterback Charlie Goro, an incoming freshman at Vanderbilt.
* Ben Brust, a point guard for Mundelein’s basketball team who had six scholarship offers, committed to Iowa, according to rivals.com and other reports. He chose Iowa over Northwestern and Southern Illinois, among other offers.
Brust, a rising senior, is the second Chicago-area recruit to go the Hawkeye route. Schaumburg’s Cully Payne, an incoming freshman, wound up going to Iowa after de-committing from Alabama.
“I just saw what a great opportunity it was for me. The combination of basketball, the academics and the atmosphere really excited me,” Brust told the Chicago City/Suburban Hoops Report.
Basketball: Dragicevich injures finger
Alex Dragicevich, a senior guard at Glenbrook North who already has four Division I scholarship offers, broke a finger June 23 at the Moody Bible Shootout and was to have surgery this week.
Dragicevich averaged 20 points last season for Glenbrook North.
“I think you’ll see that it will not affect my high school season,” Dragicevich told the Sun-Times News Group.
He hopes to be back in time for the adidas Super 64 tournament in late July at Las Vegas. According to rivals.com, Dragicevich has offers from Colorado, Miami of Ohio, Utah and Rhode Island, along with interest from Indiana and Michigan of the Big Ten.
Baseball: Wind blows dugout roof onto coach
When is a dugout not safe … outside of a temper tantrum thrown by Cubs outfielder Milton Bradley?
Beware Chicago‘s winds of summer. St. Laurence baseball coach Adam Lotus was actually standing outside his team‘s dugout during a summer league game last week when strong winds from a sudden storm tore the roof off the dugout and part of it landed on Lotus.
He was treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for minor injuries, according to a police report.
Coaching: DePaul assistant takes St. Rita job
Boys basketball coaching spots are filling up at Chicago Catholic League schools. Gary DeCesare, who was an assistant coach for men’s head basketball coach Jerry Wainwright at DePaul and Richmond, recently accepted an offer to be head boys basketball coach at St. Rita High School on Chicago’s southwest side.
DeCesare won four city titles and two state championships while he was boys basketball coach at St. Raymond’s High School in New York.
Loyola Academy, a Catholic Blue rival of St. Rita, hired Tom Livatino from Lincoln Park.
Livatino, a former assistant at Loyola, won 100 games and three regional championships in five seasons at Lincoln Park.
“The opportunity at Loyola is something I have always wanted,” Livatino told the Chicago Sun-Times Group. “It’s a very special place, one of the top athletic programs in the state.”
Schaumburg, a public school in the northwest suburbs, also has a new coach.
Matthew Walsh, an assistant at Conant since 1996, replaces Bob Williams as head coach at Schaumburg.
Williams, head coach for 18 years, resigned after this season, citing philosophical differences with school principal Tim Little. Williams, in turn, took the head coaching position at Niles West. Williams was 347-156 at Schaumburg, and takes over a team that was 9-17 last season.
Brian Johnson, an assistant last season at West Aurora, is the new boys basketball head coach at Kaneland, according to the Aurora Beacon News. Johnson is a St. Edward graduate.
Paul Bowker, a 25-year journalist, covers the Chicago area for MaxPreps. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.
