Two of the players on
Bolingbrook's girls basketball team have already won world gold. They also have won two consecutive state championships.
This weekend, the unbeaten Raiders (4-0) will find out if they‘re the best in the nation when they play in the Nike Tournament of Champions in Phoenix.
Bolingbrook‘s lineup includes three major-college recruits: Tennessee signee Ariel Massengale, Illinois signee Taylor Tuck and 2012 Connecticut verbal Morgan Tuck. Massengale and Morgan Tuck played on the USA Basketball U17 Women‘s National Team which won the FIBA U17 World Championship for Women this past summer.
The Raiders, who are No. 2 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 rankings, will play
Santa Monica (Calif.), on Saturday. They could end up meeting top-ranked Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.), in the championship game Dec. 23. The tournament field includes four other teams ranked in the top 10: No. 3
Brea Olinda (Brea, Calif.); No. 6
Long Beach Poly (Calif.); No. 7
Central Baptist (Memphis, Tenn.), and No. 10
St. Mary's (Phoenix).
119 POINTS IN ONE DAY
Connecticut recruit
Ryan Boatright of East Aurora and Louisville recruit
Wayne Blackshear of Chicago Morgan Park tore up the scoring sheets in record fashion last Saturday. Blackshear scored 56 points in a win over Ellison in an afternoon game, then Boatright put in a school-record 63 in a Saturday night 113-104 win over Proviso West.
And don't count this as a one-time thing. Earlier this year in a season that is still young, Boatright scored 55, one fewer than the previous school record, in a win over St. Charles.
"I'm glad I didn't break the record in St. Charles. It meant so much more to break it at home in front of our fans," he told the Chicago Tribune.
If Boatright and Blackshear have their eyes on a state record, they do have a ways to go. John Battle, then playing for Chicago Cathedral, scored 91 points in a 1979 game against Evanston Roycemore.
5 BIG PERFORMANCES* University of Illinois recruit
Mycheal Henry of Chicago Orr scored 32 points in a 67-58 win over Huntsville (Ala.) Lee in a game played in Champaign.
* Kieran Woods scored 21 consecutive points for
Crane (Chicago) over parts of three quarters, leading the Cougars to a 57-56 win over Chicago Orr. Woods, a senior guard, wound up with 34 points and eight rebounds.
* Ohio State recruit
Samuel Thompson of Whitney Young scored 17 points and had seven rebounds in a 62-49 win over previously unbeaten North Lawndale. Young is coming off a 2009-10 season in which he battled through a series of ankle and foot injuries. The Dolphins have won three of their four games.
* Whitney Young's Chanise Jenkins scored 22 points, leading the 6-1 Dolphins to a 60-45 win over Trinity (9-2). She also had 10 steals.
* Connecticut recruit Morgan Tuck scored 27 points, leading unbeaten Bolingbrook to a 72-38 win over Lincoln-Way East. In their last two games, the Raiders (4-0) have won by a combined score of 169-65.
STORYLINES AROUND CHICAGOLAND:* Lukas Verzbicas is the quickest in the nation again. The senior from
Sandburg (Orland Park) won the Foot Locker Championship for the second year in a row, winning the 5-kilometer event held at Balboa Park in San Diego with a time of 14 minutes, 59 seconds. "It was tougher this year than last year. I've been racing week after week. Everybody is expecting me to be tired. I'm just relieved to have won," Verzbicas told the Chicago Sun-Times. Jack Driggs of Elmhurst York finished 13th with a time of 15:29. Kayla Bettie of Woodstock finished 12th in the girls race with a time of 17:48.
* Margaret Wildner, a 5-foot-10 forward for
Mother McAuley (Chicago) and a St. Xavier recruit, will be lost for the rest of the basketball season, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. She tore an anterior-cruciate ligament against Stevenson in the Maine West tournament.
* The
Streamwood High School girls basketball team is off to an 11-0 start and defeated Rolling Meadows in a battle of unbeatens Monday night. The Sabres are within three wins of equaling a school record for consecutive wins; they play host to Addison Trail on Thursday. "I'm so proud of my girls. Nobody thought we would be here except us. Nobody looked at us to be 11-0 at this point," Streamwood coach George Rosner told the Chicago Tribune.
* John Van Fleet, retired athletic director at Woodstock High School, was named recipient of the 2010 Frank Kovaleski Professional Development Award. He will receive the award Dec. 19 in Orlando, Fla., as a part of the annual National Athletic Directors Conference. The award is presented annually by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association to a member who has contributed to the vision of professional development and made significant contributions at the state, local and national levels. Van Fleet, who retired in 2006, spent 30 years as a teacher, coach, athletic trainer and athletic director at five schools in two states, beginning at Ames (Iowa) High School in 1977.
ON DECK* The Elgin Holiday Tournament begins play Dec. 20. Elgin, winners in five of its first seven games, was named the tourney's top seed. Two-defending tourney champ Neuqua Valley (9-0) was named No. 2.
Paul Bowker, an online and newspaper sports journalist for 25 years and the author of two Major League Baseball books, covers the Chicago area for MaxPreps. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.
