Benet senior Jessica Jendryk earned another national honor when she was named to the 2008 Mizuno All-American Honorable Mention Team, according to Benet's athletic site.
Jendryk, an Illinois recruit and Sun-Times all-stater, was already named an American Volleyball Coaches Association first-team All-American in November.
-Notre Dame was selected No. 1 in this week's USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine men's college hockey poll. Teddy Ruth, a Naperville local, and The Fighting Irish will be in the area Jan. 2-3 for a tournament at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
-North Central College track and field will host a clinic for coaches and athletes (age 12 and up) on Sunday, Dec. 14 at Merner Fieldhouse. For more information, call Mahesh Narayanan at 630-637-5525 or e-mail mahesh@noctrl.edu.
-Strictly Shooting Co. will hold a basketball camp for boys and girls grades four through eight on Dec. 22-23 and Dec. 29-30 at Kennedy Junior High School in Naperville. For more information, call 630-355-0622 or visit strictlyshootinghoops.com.
-Prepvolleyball.com ranks Benet 16th, Naperville Central 43rd and Naperville North 70th in its Dec. 4 edition of the top 100 national rankings. All three teams finished its seasons last month. Phil Brozynski has an alumni update here.
According to athletic director Marty Bee, the following Naperville Central student-athletes are expected to sign letters of intent Wednesday morning:
Drew Crawford (men's basketball): Northwestern University
Meghan Brey (women's volleyball): Oakland University
Mary Carroll (women's volleyball): Lewis University
Jill Fields (women's volleyball): South Dakota State University
Kelley Hendrick (women's basketball): University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Erin Lamb (women's swimming): University of Illinois
Emily McGee (women's volleyball): University of North Carolina
Chelsea Thurlby (women's volleyball): DePaul University
That's what Prepvolleyball.com said with its Century Club Pre-Season Top 100 High School Rankings, which were released last week. Benet, which has never made it to the state tournament, is ranked higher than defending Class 4A state champion Naperville Central.
If you are a signed up as a member on that site, click here. If not, take the word of The Heat Index, which is nothing if not a reliable source of information.
Here is how Prepvolleyball.com ranked Illinois teams:
4. Benet
7. Downers Grove South
14. Naperville Central
37. Mother McAuley
46. Althoff Catholic
96. Normal Community
Naperville North graduate Colleen Ward will begin her college volleyball career this fall at the University of Florida, and according to Prepvolleyball.com, she is part of the nation's top recruiting class.
The Web site released its Top College Recruiting Classes of 2008 list on Tuesday. Unless you are a registered user at the site, you will have to take our word for it.
In addition to The Sun's 2007 player of the year, Florida signed up Ward's Sports Performance teammate Kelly Murphy of Joliet Catholic, who was the Gatorade national player of the year.
Ward, a hard-working, powerful attacker ... could vie for a starting spot on the outside.
Strange fact that probably means nothing: None of the six players that signed with the Gators are from Florida. There are two players from Illinois, two from Colorado, one from Georgia and one from California.
The Sports Performance 18 Elite team won the Junior Volleyball Directors Association national chamionship on Monday in Louisville, Ky., to complete what coach Rick Butler believes is the first undefeated season in the 18 Open division.
Naperville North graduates Colleen Ward and Christine Wu, along with North seniors Julie Chin and Nrithya Sundararaman will now be able to say they went 83-0. Including last season, Sports Performance has a 120-match winning streak.
"We were all saying together, 'Just push out for 25 points because this is the last game we'll all be playing together.," Wu said. "It just hit us that ... we have one game left and we just want it to end well."
Kyushu Bunka Gakuen High School, the 11-time Japanese national girls volleyball champion which will play Sports Performance 18 Elite on Wednesday night, was once at the center of one of the most self-evident research studies known to man.
According to this abstract, 24 girls volleyball players from KBG were studied over the course of 11 months during 1988 and 1989. They were tested for body fat percentage, cardiorespiratory function, body composition and skin fold measurement.
Those results were compared to those of 16 players from another local school that had "second-class players." (In your face Nagasaki Prefecture!)
