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28 | August 17, 2017 | The glencoe anchor sports glencoeanchor.com Alumni Spotlight LA grad Smart named NJCAA All-American, set to play at UIC Michael Wojtychiw Sports Editor To be named as one of the best in your craft, regardless of what it is, is always an honor. When the list of the best includes only 12 members, including only one of two from your state, the feat becomes more impressive. Loyola Academy graduate Thomas Smart was one of only four freshmen to be named a National Junior College Athletic Association Division III Baseball First Team All- American after a successful first season while playing for Oakton Community College. “I wasn’t really expecting it but it was a tremendous honor,” Smart said. “It’s a huge credit to our coaches and my teammates.” The right-handed hitter batted .424 with four home runs, eight triples, 75 hits and 53 runs batted in. His slugging percentage was .667. His eight triples were sixth in the country, while his hit total was 20th and RBI total 22nd. “My role on the team was just to go out and win games, bring a positive energy to the team,” he said. “Right when I got there I wasn’t sure what they’d need me for or how much playing time I’d get but as the fall went on, it became clear what guys were going to play where and who’s going to do what.” Transitioning from high school to college baseball can be difficult, especially with teams traveling all across the state, and even the country, during the middle of the school year. Many northern teams will play in the south in late February and March because the weather in the northern states weather doesn’t always cooperate. But that also takes the student-athletes out of school for long stretches of time, sometimes multiple weeks in a row. “The time management, Loyola graduate Thomas Smart looks to make a play during Oakton Community College’s 2017 season. PHOTO SUBMITTED balancing school with baseball was the hardest part,” Smart said. “In high school, I played multiple sports, so it wasn’t a huge adjustment but the long drives, the long days, trying to stay focused during the season and balancing both was the hardest part.” Smart came to Oakton looking for some scholarship offers that would allow him to play at an even higher level. His brother had played at Oakton as well, and had gotten a scholarship, so he knew Oakton would allow him that opportunity. And give the 2016 Loyola graduate an opportunity it has. Earlier this summer, Smart committed to play baseball next season at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he will be joining 2017 Loyola graduate Ryan Lin-Peistrup on the baseball team. The Flames are coming off of an extremely successful season that saw them win the Horizon League and qualify for the NCAA Tournament. The 2017 Flames tied the 2002 and 2003 teams with a school record 39 wins. The group lost the fewest amount of games, 17, since the 2002 team (16). “I felt it [UIC]’d be the best fit for me,” he said. “I loved everything about the program. The coaches are great, I love that it’s close to home. I think we have a good chance to win and I’m just excited.” Along with making his college commitment, Smart has been playing in the Northwoods League, a summer league made up of college baseball players playing on teams all over the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. Smart has been playing on the Madison Mallards and through 60 games, was hitting .257, 58 hits and 30 RBI. His hits total is good enough for third on the team and the RBI for fifth. He is also one of only three junior college players on a squad of 31. “It’s been real eye-opening, facing the best of the best and competing with them,” Smart said. “It’s also been a lot of fun playing baseball every day for the whole summer. I’ve learned a lot and been a great opportunity for me.” Montoya From Page 30 that earned three gold medals in the CanAmMex regatta. “We competed against rowers from Canada and Mexico, we raced three styles of boats and we won the gold medal in each,” he said. “It was a special experience that opened a lot of doors for me.” Another older brother, 37-year-old David who now does military security work in Florida, also distinguished himself in athletics. He played football at the U.S. Naval Academy. Carlos went to the University of Illinois, where he studied economics and Spanish. After college, he entered the healthcare field. “We come from a family of people who like to take care of others,” he said. “There are a lot of physicians in my family so I think that’s why I got into health care. I was helping physicians manage their web-sites and their billings. That taught me about business. “At the same time, I was coaching Loyola Academy rowing and one of the parents told me I should open a gym.” Carlos liked the idea of combining an entrepreneurial endeavor with physical training. “I merged the two passions together and started my gym in 2007,” he said. “I’m now working with about 70 adults — the demographic is mostly people from ages 40-60 and I have a few people in their 70s. There also are about 25 high school kids I’m working with, ranging in age from 13-18. “There are four daily classes of one hour — 5:30 and 9 in the morning and 5:30 and 6:30 in the afternoon. Each class is broken into parts. The first portion after the warm up is strengthbased training; the second portion is accessory training to isolate muscle groups; the third portion is conditioning, getting the heart rate up; and the fourth part is stretching movements. “They do (essentially) the same workouts as my brother, but I scale down and modify. My 94-yearold grandmother [Esperanza Galvez] is even doing similar things to what Al does. She doesn’t do weights but I have her pulling a sled.” In addition to a brother who plays in the NHL and a 94-year-old grandma, Conjugate Fitness has other notable clients, such as Glenview Village President Jim Patterson and Denny Hebson of the Hackney’s family restaurant group who moonlights by writing a column for The Glenview Lantern. Al Montoya comes to Conjugate Fitness for his private 90-minute workouts four or five days a week. “Sometimes he will bring a friend,” Carlos said. “He has brought Mike Brown [a former Glenbrook North player who was a Michigan teammate and now is a free agent who has played for six NHL teams]. Other times I’ll go to Roscoe Village and bring some pieces of equipment and he will do something light. “The relationship my brother and I have established has grown bigger and stronger every year and has added to the success both of us have enjoyed. I don’t think there are many relationships that rival our relationship.”
glencoeanchor.com sports the glencoe anchor | August 17, 2017 | 29 Golf NT grad Murlick takes second at Illinois Open Neil Milbert Freelance Reporter When Patrick Flavin won the 68th Illinois Open championship on Aug. 9 at the Glen Club in Glenview, the 21-year-old Highwood golfer did something that hadn’t been done in 37 years. He became the first golfer to win both the Illinois Open and the Illinois Amateur in the same year since David Ogrin of the Bloomington Country Club accomplished the feat in 1980 and he was the 11th amateur winner in the Open’s 68-year history. “To win the state Amateur and state Open in the same year was far beyond my expectations for sure,” said the Miami University of Ohio senior-to-be. Flavin, who finished with a score of 13-underpar, won by one stroke just as he did on July 20 when he captured the Illinois Amateur at the Calumet Country Club in Homewood but the way he did it was completely different. In contrast to the Illinois Amateur, where he rallied on the final day, in the Illinois Open he struggled on the last day and had to hold off the challenges of fellow amateurs Matt Murlick of Winnetka and Nick Hardy of Northbrook and a 30-year-old powerhitting professional, Brandon Holtz of downstate Bloomington, who finished in a three-way tie for second. Flavin began the final round, flaunting a six stroke lead with a 15-under-par of 128, thanks to back-to-back rounds of 64 on the first day at his home course, Deerfield’s Briarwood Country Club and on the second day at The Glen Club. Holtz and Wilmette pro Eric Meierdierks, who were Flavin’s playing partners for the final 18 holes, began the round at 9-under par while Hardy was 8-under and Murlick was 7-under. During the first two days, Flavin didn’t record any bogeys and had birdies galore. But in shooting a 74 on the last day to finish with a 54-hole score of 202, he carded a double bogey on the par-3 fourth hole and bogeys on the par-4 sixth and the par-4 13th. His only birdies were on the par 5 first hole and the par 4 eighth. “I played my best on back-to-back days and put myself in great position,” said Flavin, who earned four letters at Highland Park High School and earned a spot on the All- State team his senior season. “Today I was just kind of hanging on. “I started out with a great birdie but I definitely had some shaky shots. On the fourth hole I was fortunate to find my ball (after driving into the bushes behind trees; my dad found it for me. It was my first over par hole (in the tournament) and it threw me for a loop.” After shooting a 36 on the front nine, Holtz caught fire on the back nine. From the 10th through the 15th holes the scorecard of the former shooting guard on the Illinois State basketball team showed birdie, birdie, bogey, birdie, birdie. The birdie on the 15th put him in a deadlock with Flavin. “When I lost the solo Eric Meierdierks tries to direct his shot with some body language during the Illinois Open Aug. 9 at The Glen Club in Glenview. photos by CARLOS ALVAREZ/22ND CENTURY MEDIA lead it kind gave me a sense of urgency,” Flavin said. “On the 16th I hit a great tee shot and a great second shot and an awesome putt (in carding a par 4). On the 17th, my par (coupled with a bogey 4 by Holtz) gave me the lead back.” The errant shot on this par 3 hole that Holtz was unable to overcome was his drive that landed in deep rough. On the par-5 18th hole, Flavin put both his drive and second shot in the fairway. He found the green on his third shot but left himself with a long putt. The putt put him within inches of the cup and he tapped in for his par. Holtz, meanwhile, just missed the hole on a medium-range putt and, like Flavin, tapped in for a par. If the first putt had gone in, for the first time since 2013 it would have taken a playoff to determine the champion. Murlick replied “I’m not sad at all” when asked if he had any regrets about Matt Murlick knocks in short putt finishing in a tie for second with Holtz and Hardy. “I played as well as I could. I had a great tournament. It was my first time in this tournament and I enjoyed it a lot.” The former New Trier golfer, who will be starting his sophomore year at Marquette this month, was the strongest finisher, carding a 67 on the final day. “I got off to a really good start,” Murlick said. “I made a bunker shot on the first hole and on the second hole I holed out with a 9-iron from about 155 yards out on the fairway for an eagle. Then, I kept making pars. “On the back nine, I changed my game plan a little bit and started to be more aggressive. I made birdie putts on the 14th and 15th to give me some last minute hope (of catching or overtaking Flavin). I kept making pars, which normally is a good thing, but in this case I needed to make a couple more birdies.” Hardy, a former Glenbrook North star who has gone on to become one of the nation’s top college players at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, was the winner of the 2016 Illinois Amateur with a recordbreaking 28-under-par score and then earned the low amateur trophy in the 2016 Illinois Open when he tied for fourth. Last year’s Illinois Open champion, 31-yearold Carlos Sainz, Jr. of Elgin, finished in fifth place this year, two strokes behind the second place threesome of Murlick, Hardy and Holtz. Sainz also was the champion in 2006. After shooting 66 and 68 the first two days Meierdierks slumped to a 73 in the final round for a three-day score of 207 that put him in a tie for seventh. The former New Trier golfer, who turned pro in 2006, won the 2010 Illinois Open and finished second in 2012 when he lost to Max Scodro in sudden death on the sixth playoff hole. Earlier this year the long-hitting Meierdierks was sidelined with an elbow injury. “It’s sort of depressing when you can’t do something you love to do,” he said. “I’ve finally got the elbow back to 100 percent. In the last two months, I’ve been progressing with no pain. I’ve become a little smarter as I’ve gotten a little older. I try to manage my game—keep the ball in the fairway and take advantage of my length.” Glenview amateur Quinlan Prchal tied for 11th (69-72-68-209), while fellow Glenview amateur Kevin Paek finished 41st (70-73-75-218). Amateur contestants were not awarded prize money but received $750 in expenses, while Holtz earned $13,886 for being the professional with the lowest score. Among the former champions in the field was the 1994 winner, 72-yearold Gary Groh, a 2017 Illinois Hall of Fame inductee from Lake Bluff. Groh had scores of 83 and 84 to show for the first two rounds for a 167 and that wasn’t low enough to enable him to make the cut.
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