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30 | March 22, 2018 | The highland park landmark Sports hplandmark.com This Week In ... Giants Athletics Boys Volleyball ■March ■ 22 - at Niles West, 6 p.m. ■March ■ 27 - hosts Waukegan, 6 p.m. Boys Track and Field ■March ■ 24 - at Varsity Classic Girls Soccer ■March ■ 22 - hosts Lake Forest, 4:45 p.m. ■March ■ 27 - at Deerfield, 6:45 p.m. Boys Gymnastics ■March ■ 22 - hosts Maine East, 6 p.m. ■March ■ 27 - hosts Niles West, 6 p.m. Girls Water Polo ■March ■ 22 - at Vernon Hills, 6 p.m. Gear up for baseball season with the latest cleats from New Balance. Two new styles for pro performance. Vote for Athlete of the Month Help support young athletes. Vote online March 10 - 25 at: hplandmark.com Boys Water Polo ■March ■ 22 - hosts Vernon Hills, 6 p.m. ■March ■ 23-24 - at Maine East Girls Lacrosse ■March ■ 22 - at Evanston, 6:15 p.m. ■March ■ 26 - hosts Nazareth Academy, 4:45 p.m. Baseball ■March ■ 24 - hosts Dundee Crown, 10 a.m. ■March ■ 26 - at Zion-Benton, 4:45 p.m. Softball ■March ■ 22 - at Woodlands Academy, 4:45 p.m. ■March ■ 24 - hosts Hoffman Estates, 11 a.m. Congratulations to this week’s Athlete of the Week. We’re pleased to be a sponsor of this program. New Balance North Shore 610 Central Avenue • Port Clinton Square Downtown Highland Park 847-266-8323 • Open 7 Days • ShopNewShoes.com visit us online at hplandmark.com Athlete of the Week 10 Questions with T.J. Gimbel T.J. Gimbel is a senior at Highland Park High School and is a pitcher on the baseball team. How did you get started playing baseball? I started with T-ball. My parents signed me up and I went through T-ball, coach pitch and then house league and when I started playing travel I just loved it my entire life. I always wanted to keep playing and getting better. What is your favorite part of the sport? I love the competitiveness of it. It’s very simple. You throw the ball, you hit the ball and you run. You obviously have to be skilled about it and I love the team aspect of it. Everyone has to play a role. What is the most challenging part of baseball? I think it’s failure. If you look at baseball, you fail more than you succeed. If you’re a hitter and you hit .300 you fail seven out of 10 times, but that’s a good percentage. What is a goal of yours for the season? I just want to help my team in anyway that I can. I want to go out there when it’s my turn to pitch and compete and throw strikes and give my team the best chance to win. What was a memorable moment you’ve had with this team? The best moment this season was our last game against Hersey. We went out and played Palatine and we couldn’t really get hits and struggled to get the bats going. And yet here we rebounded and came out and scored three runs in the first inning. That gave me a lot to work with on the mound. What has Coach Jason Newburger Photo Submitted brought to the team this season? I really like the competitive aspect that he brings to our practices. Obviously, having him on the staff last year most of us were familiar with him this year. He puts us in a lot of game-like situations in practice. What is your favorite subject in school? I would say Econ because I want to learn how the economy plays into the business world. I like politics a lot, so I want to see how politicians form their policies based off of economics. What is your favorite food? Probably a cheeseburger from Charlie Beinlich’s in Northbrook. Who is your favorite professional athlete? Yasiel Puig, he plays on the (Los Angeles) Dodgers. He came into the league a couple of years ago; he’s an international player. I just love the energy he plays with. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Australia. It just seems cool and I never hear about people going to Australia. I’m always looking for new adventures. Interview with Sports Editor Brittany Kapa
hplandmark.com Sports the highland park landmark | March 22, 2018 | 31 Girls basketball Player of the Year Loyola’s Martinez earns award after historic show Michael Wojtychiw Contributing Sports Editor For most basketball teams, the point guard is another coach on the court. They’re the eyes and ears of what’s happening on the hardwood. Loyola Academy’s point guard, Julia Martinez, was that and more for the Ramblers this season. Thanks to her efforts, the Loyola star was named the inaugural 22nd Century Media girls basketball Player of the Year. From a young age the junior knew she wanted to play basketball and it was all thanks to family. “I’ve kind of played basketball my whole life, but probably started when I was around kindergarten,” she said. “I have two older sisters who played, and both my parents were coaches. Ever since I was younger, I always knew I wanted to play basketball and would play against the older kids.” The 5-foot-10 junior from the North Side of Chicago averaged 9.9 points per game, 7.3 rebounds per game, 6.7 assists per game and 2.8 steals a contest, en route to leading her team to a regional title and a sectionaltitle game appearance. She came to Loyola and earned a spot on the varsity team right away, something not easy to do at a school like Loyola. But that didn’t faze Martinez. “I feel like when I was younger, I was so confident in my game, and I love the game so much,” she said. “I came in doing what I normally do and actually wasn’t that nervous when coach (Jeremy) Schoenecker said my name for the first game my freshman year.” Point guards are usually one of two kinds, ones that are a true point guard, and pass the ball to their teammates before anything else, or a scoring point guard who isn’t afraid to put up shot after shot. “I’d probably say I’m a pass-first mentality point guard,” Martinez said. “I look to find my teammates, looking up court to see who’s open, giving my teammates the ball.” Colleges have taken notice of Martinez doing her job and she’s racked up 12 scholarship offers from Division I schools. Martinez announced her commitment to Saint Louis University on Friday, March 16. But before she gets ready to head off to college, she has one year to help the Ramblers continue to move further into the playoffs, something they’ve done three consecutive seasons now. The team made it to the sectional final this year, after losing in the sectional semifinal last season and the regional final the two years prior. Loyola has had a lot of success during her tenure, witnessed by Schoenecker picking up his 200th career victory this season and his team winning at least 20 games in a season for the eighth time in his 10 years at the helm. “During practice, we work on a lot of different aspects, we start off with a ton of shooting, every single spot on the floor,” Martinez said. “We work on our defense, then our offense.” During the first half of Loyola’s Jan. 30 contest against De La Salle, Martinez broke the school’s career assist record, previously set by Laura Sobieszczyk’s in 1999 who had 507. Martinez now has over 540 career assists with a year to go. “I obviously have to give my teammates a lot of credit because they’re Julia Martinez drives to the basket in a game during the 2017-18 season. 22nd Century Media File photo the ones putting the ball in the basket,” she said. “It means a lot, it’s pretty exciting.” Boys basketball Player of the Year Cunningham uses growth to achieve career dreams Michael Wojtychiw Contributing Sports Editor For athletes, the hope is to improve as they get older, with more experience and better skills en route to hopefully earn an opportunity to play at the next level, collegiately. That was the route that Loyola senior Kevin Cunningham took during his four years at Loyola, one that saw him finish his Rambler career as 22nd Century Media’s inaugural boys basketball Player of the Year. Cunningham said he feels that every season has been one he’s grown in. “Freshman year was tough for me because I was hurt and didn’t play the whole year,” he said. “Sophomore year I got hurt again and missed a couple games but since then I’ve just improved my whole game. I don’t think there’s a part of my game that’s gotten worse or stayed the same. I think I got stronger, more aggressive and became an all-around better player.” After having players like Ramar Evans and Julian DeGuzman as last year’s go-to players, Cunningham’s role changed this year as a senior. He moved over to the point guard position and became the squad’s Loyola’s Kevin Cunningham evades a steal attempt by Notre Dame’s Troy D’Amico during the 2017-2018 season. 22nd Century Media file photo primary leader. “Ramar last year was our big leader, well and Julian too, but Ramar was our captain, he really led us when times got tough,” Cunningham said. “That really helped me because I looked up to him last year as a leader and he taught me so much. He had a great voice, through his actions and how he played; he never got rattled.” Cunningham’s new role on the team wasn’t an easy change. “I think there were some difficulties adjusting,” he said, “I had to go over the plays and make sure I knew every position, because I didn’t really know that one game I could be playing point guard, the next at two guard.” For the fourth time in coach Tom Livatino’s nine years at the helm of Loyola basketball, and second consecutive year, the Ramblers finished with 20 wins and a regional title. The Ramblers play in one of the tougher conferences in the state and were in one of the hardest, if not the hardest, sectional this season. “[Coach Tom] Livatino has a great system,” Cunningham said. “Anybody who plays for Livatino has to buy into his system or else it’ll be hard to get many minutes. Our team revolves around defense, getting good shots and not rushing shots. It’s just buying into the culture and I think every guy in the past two years did that. That leads to success.”
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