THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2008
Exciting Sports Season Just Around Corner
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Sports
Sports junkies, this is your time.
I should say, our time.
Not only do we have the baseball pennant races and the Beijing Olympics this month, we've got fall football and the annual renewal of high school sports to keep us going until Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The Journal, of course, is all about high school sports, ranging this fall from football to cross country, golf, swimming, tennis, and volleyball.
With youth baseball, soccer, and softball tournaments mostly in the memory book, practices for the six boys and girls high school sports begin next week, with football kicking off the August practice season next Wednesday, Aug. 13, and other sports following on Aug. 18.
Area golf competition leads the season off on Aug. 22, and football follows a week later, on the weekend of Aug. 29-30.
Let me digress a moment and recall some highlights from the fall 2007 high school season. There were a lot of them.
Remember how St. Viator's super boys golf underclassmen waltzed to the school's first team state championship? Four of them return this fall and should provide a strong defense of that title.
Cross country won't be the same this fall without Kevin Havel of Hersey, who is off at college. He dominated the local boys CC scene for four impressive years and led the Huskies to 8th place in the state and ran to a third place individual finish a year ago.
Maine South won its seventh straight Central Suburban-South conference football crown and appeared in the football playoffs for the 16th straight season, an area record; The Hawks went 2-1 in the post-season. Wheeling rebounded from a decade of obscurity to tie Rolling Meadows for the Mid Suburban-East championship and got to the playoffs, along with Prospect, Meadows, and Notre Dame.
Maine South won the area girls volleyball sectional championship with a senior-dominated lineup, and Maine East recorded a winning boys soccer season with a largely underclass lineup.
Here are a few generalized (I'm not about to get too specific forecasting the achievements of teenage athletes) predictions of what fans can look forward to this fall in high school competition:
* St. Viator's boys golfers will lead a parade of area teams and individuals into the post-season, and the Lions are legit contenders again for state honors.
* Maine South is loaded again in football, and will, barring key injuries, dominate the CSL-South and go deep into the post-season. Ditto for Prospect and Rolling Meadows in the Mid Suburban League. But Notre Dame and St. Viator face uphill battles in the tough and balanced East Suburban Catholic Conference.
* Area runners will make some loud noises in cross country, led by Mid Suburban League schools.
* Competition in boys soccer, and girls volleyball, tennis, and swimming, will be wide open and will bring a lot of surprises.
No rules changes have been made by the IHSA this year, and virtually all head varsity coaches return to their teams. So it's pretty much business as usual in high school sports.
Football makes fall my favorite time in local athletics. Where else can you have major league baseball, pro football, college football, and Olympics, plus high school competition, all going at once?
Among all you junkies out there, I'm the junkiest.
P.S. - Brett Favre, anyone? Anyone?