OP_121318

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the orland park prairie | December 13, 2018 | 47
fastbreak
THURSDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
Fab four are among nation’s elite
JEFF VORVA/22ND CENTURY
MEDIA
1ST AND 3
ANDREW AND
SANDBURG’S BOYS AND
GIRLS BASKETBALL
TEAMS WILL FACE OFF
NEXT WEEK.
1. Close game
Sandburg’s girls
team (ABOVE) will
square off with
Andrew on Thursday,
Dec. 20 in Orland
Park. Last year,
Andrew won 49-44
in Tinley Park.
2. Fitch came up big
Andrew’s Isis Fitch,
then a junior, had 11
points in last year’s
battle.
3. Skipping a year
The two boys teams
face off Tuesday,
Dec. 18, in Tinley
Park after the two
teams didn’t play in
2017-18. The last
time they faced each
other was Dec. 2,
2016 and Sandburg
eked out a 35-32
victory in Orland
Park.
Jeff Vorva
j.vorva@22ndcm.com
I’ve read different studies
on this, but roughly 7
percent of the approximately
7.9 million students
who participate in high
school athletics go on to play
in college.
I don’t care if you go to
Duke or some D-III or NAIA
school hardly anyone has
heard of, you are in elite
company.
When it comes to area
players signing to a college
(Attention! Early football
signing day is Dec. 19!) or
doing well on the college
level, that’s something I
enjoy writing about.
Not every signee is going
to be a star. Some may quit
after a few weeks of practice.
Some my find that balancing
school work and the
demands of college sports
might be too much. Some
may have overshot their
opinions of their abilities
and were more suited for a
smaller division.
Many will play all four
years and not star in their
sport. They are still miles
ahead of the game on those
93 percent athletes who
didn’t get offers.
That’s why when I hear of
the athletes in Tinley Park
and Orland Park excelling at
the highest level, I really get
geeked up.
These are the elite of the
elite.
In a short window toward
the end of November and
early December, I heard
great news about two Tinley
athletes and two Orland
athletes who are flying in
rare air. We’ve written about
these four before in The Tinley
Junction and The Orland
Park Prairie when they were
in high school, but now they
are taking their games to
incredible levels.
Patrick Brucki
Brucki not only helped his
Princeton squad knock off a
ranked squad, it made some
history doing it.
Brucki, a sophomore from
Sandburg, beat Lehigh’s Jake
Jakobsen 7-4 at 197 pounds
on Nov. 30, and that allowed
the Tigers to beat eighthranked
Lehigh 21-19, which
is the first time Princeton
beat Lehigh since 1968 and
the first time in history the
Tigers won at Lehigh.
He was ranked seventh
in the nation according to
NCAA.com and was trailing
15th-ranked Jakobsen 2-0 in
the second period in the final
match of the night before
he rallied for the victory. He
is now ranked sixth in the
nation.
Dylan Jacobs
A state track champion
and national cross country
champ in high school, the
Notre Dame freshman had to
cool his heels from competition
in the fall as he was
red-shirted for XC.
He used that time to build
up his training and mileage,
and if his debut for the
Fighting Irish’s indoor track
team is any indication, things
should work out fine.
He finished first in the
3,000 meter race with a time
of 8 minutes, 11.57 seconds
at the Blue and Gold Invitational
at Notre Dame on
Dec. 30.
Oh, and his hair is now
dyed blonde.
Miles Boykin
The Notre Dame senior
(who still has a year of eligibility
left because he redshirted
a season) wrapped up
a successful regular-season
football campaign on Nov.
24 with three catches for
73 yards in a 24-17 win
over USC to keep the Irish
unbeaten and in the fourteam
playoff for the national
championship. The Irish will
play Clemson Dec. 29 in the
Cotton Bowl/CFP semifinals.
For the season, the Tinley
Park native and Providence
Catholic graduate nabbed
54 passes for 803 yards and
eight touchdowns. He was
named the team’s offensive
MVP award by his teammates.
Sandburg graduate Patrick Brucki (facing left), a
sophomore at Princeton, is ranked sixth in the nation at 197
pounds. BEVERLY SCHAEFER/PTINCETON UNIVERSITY
Dylan Jacobs, a freshman at Notre Dame and a Sandburg
graduate, won his first indoor race.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NOTRE DAME
Eric Schultz
The former Tinley Park
High School standout
wrestler is now a Nebraska
standout wrestler.
The sophomore started
to make his mark with a
second-place finish in the
Cliff Keen Invitational on
Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 in Las
Vegas. In his climb to the
title match at the 197-pound
level, he knocked off the
16th-ranked wrestler in the
country, Jackson Striggow
of Michigan, 5-3. He was
stopped by No. 3 Kollin
Moore of Ohio State, 8-3.
He helped his team finished
third out of 42 teams.
He was eighth in the nation
in the Dec. 3 rankings.
Could we seed a Brucki-
Schultz match in the postseason?
LISTEN UP
“It’s relaxing.”
Nicholas Sfirnaciuc — 8-year old swimmer, on competing
in long distance events
What 2 Watch
Girls gymnastics, 11 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 15
• Sandburg participates in the Homewood-Flossmoor
Invitational.
INDEX
45 - Basketball reports
41 - Athlete of the Week
Compiled by Sports Editor Jeff Vorva, J.Vorva@22ndcm.com