Chicago Public League Sports Blog

Basketball Regional Semi-Final Scoreboard

Thursday, March 29, 2012
class 3A
Elmwood Park 55, Prosser 47
Grayslake North 41, Northside 25
Carmel 62, Uplift 26
Westinghouse 51, North Lawndale 48

Red-North Thoughts

After a great regular season (20 wins, Red-North title, CPS quarterfinals) Taft got an early exit in the state playoffs by conference rival Foreman.

Two days into the playoffs and the only Red-North teams alive are Prosser and Foreman. Prosser will play their first state playoff game tonight against Elmwood Park. Since Taft is in 3A, they avoid playing a much bigger school like a St. Patrick or Glenbrook North in their first state playoff game.

Taft, after a 20 win regular season, was disposed of quickly after getting thrashed by Foreman. Next year Taft could experience what Mather experienced this year. Mather went from being a CPS quarter finalist to finishing 8th in conference.  The whole Senn football and basketball programs went off cliff this year. Their basketball and football teams went winless in conference play and will be sent down to a lower conference next year. Thank God for Senn, or else Mather would be in the Blue.

Taft has Joyce and guard Doss back. After that, the pickings are slim. Joyce and Doss have to improve and they gotta get some more ballers from their system. This is a program that beat Marist and Maine South this year, and unless they find a way to reload, they will have problems verus Steinmetz and Uplift.

Foreman graduates almost everyone as well. So Foreman will be a bit down next year. Then again, they said that about Foreman last year and look where they are now. Von and Lane return some good players and will be major factors in the Red-North next year.

Uplift and Amundsen will be new to the Red-North next year. I hear they got some players. Mather was fortunate to stay in the Red. But they do have some good young players to develop.

The the Red-North could be very interesting next year.

State Budget $230 Million Short for Schools

The budget that lawmakers and Quinn (illinois Governor) approved is about $230 million short for schools, and state education officials said Monday that they would likely not be able to make the final aid payment to school districts during the second half of June.

-Chicago Tribune

 

The CPS get's a large part of it's budget from the state. The state is already forecasting a $230 million shortfall to pay for schools. To make up this deficit, the state is probably going to borrow more, tax more, or cut some their expenditures. Borrowing and taxing more have been tried in the past and is largely failing. Although, with this administration I would not be surprised if they tried taxing more even though the state of Illinois already is one of the highest taxed states. At some point (very soon) raising taxes and borrowing money will be financially impossible. At that point, cutting expenses will be one of their only options.

How soon will CPS sports programs feel the affect of the financial ineptitude of the state?

 

 

Basketball State Playoff Scoreboard

John Chico(sr-G) of Jones. Jones, due to their good record have a #3 seed in class 3A.

Neilski's Watch Games:

Tue. Feb 28

(class 4A)
Foreman 52, Taft 35
Maine South 59, Von Steuben 38
St. Patrick 55, Lane Tech 31
Glenbrook North 56, Lincoln Park 37
No. 5 Bogan 65, Mount Carmel 64
Vocational 57, Hyde Park 53

(class 3A)
Jones 62, Urban Prep Bronzeville 46
Lemont 59, Corliss 55
No. 7 Orr 75, Clark 56
No. 11 Marshall 60, Montini 45

Neilski's outlook

Taft and Foreman both advanced to the CPS quarterfinals. The difference was that Taft looked flat in their 30 point loss to Bogan, whereas Foreman put a great effort in their OT loss to an Orr team that loss only by 10 to Simeon in the semi-finals. Taft beat Foreman in their regular season matchup. But that game was at Taft. This time the game is at a neutral court. This is going to be a dogfight.

I have nothing to back it up, but I have a feeling that something strange could happen at the St. Patrick regional. On paper Von Steuben and Lane Tech are big underdogs vs Maine South and St. Patricks. However, this is playoff time. Both Von Steuben and Lane have shown they are capable of good games this year.

Lincoln Park barely got by Schurz last night in overtime. Glenbrook North is about a 30 point favorite against Lincoln Park.

 

First Round Boys Basketball State Playoff Games Scoreboard

After advancing to the CPS quarterfinals last season Mather has had a rough season with 4-19 overall record. They face a tough match tonight against a Glenbrook South team that despite having a 6-19 overall record has played some competitive games. I'm favoring Glenbrook South by at least 12. Lane will be a 10+ point favorite against Maine East.

Here are some games that I'll be keeping an eye out

Mon. Feb 27 (class 4A)
Glenbrook South 68, Mather 27
Lane 55 Maine East 38

(class 3A)
Clark 70, Bulls Charter 46
Fenwick 70, Little Village 46
Austin 69, North Grand 24
Glenbard South 76, Payton 38
Montini 61, Clemente 47
Fenton 79, Pritzker 46
Antioch 50, Senn 26
Northside 60, Kelvyn Park 46
Lake View 59, Northtown 56
Uplift 82, Aspira Early College 46
Roosevelt 52, Sullivan 43
Lincoln Park 57, Schurz 53 (OT)
Fenger 58, Bowen 53

 

A Move in the Right Direction

CPS Board Approves Closing/Turnaround of 17 poorly performing CPS Schools

The CPS board approved the three year phase out of Crane Tech and Dyett High School. They also approved replacing staff and investing in new programs at Chicago Vocational Career Academy (CVS), Tilden High School, and 9 underperforming CPS elementary schools.

The Chicago Teachers Unions and Jesse Jackson all have publicly denouced these decisions. Jackson went went ahead called this decision "Education Apartheid". The reason why the Unions hate this is because everytime a school closes there are likley going to be less union workers and less union workers mean less union dues that they are collecting. Less unions dues means less money in the union bank accounts.

The bottom line is the Crane Tech, Dyett, and to a lesser extent CVS and Tilden are not performing. Jesse Jackson will never send his kids to Dyett or Crane.

While I hate to see the closing of schools especially one of the sports tradition of a Crane Tech, something had to be done.

The CPS has done some bad things in the past and some good things in the past. This, in my opinion is a step in the right direction. We can't keep propping up the poor performers. Like in life, the poor performers get punished and the good performers need to be rewarded. The CPS is sending a clear message: "we will no longer tolerate poor performance." To me that is a great step toward really making positive improvement in the attitude and ultimately the fate of the CPS.

U-High Invitation Only -Meet B

Payton distance runner Sam Lerner(sr). Payton showed some good depth at this meet. They finished in 2nd place with 147 points and was within 30 points of first place St. Ignatius. Payton added 12 marks to the CPS Indoor Leaderboard including surprisingly the top hand time mark in the varsity 4x200 meter relay. Freshman Wesley Chan ran a 5:17 1600 meter. Payton ran a CPS frosh-soph best 3:52.1 in the 4x400 relay.

Results

Whitney Young heats it up at Proviso

Results

Whitney Young runs CPS indoor season bests in the 400, 800, 4x400, and 3200

David Bradley(jr) of Whitney Young

• Dakari Howard(sr) runs a CPS indoor season best in the 400 with a time of 52.63. 
• Nathan Beltran(sr) 2:02.24 in the 800 is a CPS indoor season FAT best time. Logan Means(jr) is not too far behind with a great time of 2:03.97. The Dolphins finished 2-4 in the 800 in this distance rich invite.
• Taro Salinas(jr) heats it up in the 3200 meter with a PR of 10:14.56. A great time for a runner who was seeded at 10:56. To repeat that time of 10:14 was run by Taro not Shan.
• Whitney Young's 4x400 time of 3:34.37 would have been fast enough to place 6th at last year CPS outdoor meet.
• A huge surprise for Whitney Young came at the 1 mile sophomore run. Jonas Schmid-Querg(so) busted out with a 4:42.65. That is the equivalent of a 4:40.8 in the 1600. The fastest VARSITY time in the 1600 for the CPS this indoor season so far is 4:44 by Lane's Marcelo Burbano.

Antioch Stuns Bowen in the State Wrestling Quarterfinals

Antioch 37 Bowen 33

from the IHSA:

Box Score

138�Von Hill (C-Bow) D 9-4 Johnny Denikas (Ant); C-Bow leads 3-0
145�Ronnie Gibbs (C-Bow) MD 24-11 Ken Strohman (Ant); C-Bow leads 7-0
152�George Gonzalez (Ant) MD 17-6 Bobby O�Banner (C-Bow); C-Bow leads 7-4
160�Raheem Woods (C-Bow) MD 13-5 Zach Keller (Ant); C-Bow leads 11-4
170�John Bieschke (Ant) Forfeit (C-Bow); C-Bow leads 11-10
182�Zach Epker (Ant) F 1:51 Andre Thigpen (C-Bow); Ant leads 16-11
195�Zach Freundt (Ant) F :39 Otis Griffin (C-Bow); Ant leads 22-11
220�Dequence Goodman (C-Bow) F 2:39 Teddy Montemayor (Ant); Ant leads 22-17
285�Jacky Dezir (C-Bow) F 1:37 Mark Lyman (Ant); C-Bow leads 23-22
106�Briley Schultz (Ant) F 2:26 Jajuan Ross (C-Bow); Ant leads 28-23
113�Ronzel Darling (C-Bow) F 1:40 Chris Ruth (Ant); C-Bow leads 29-28
120�Pat Unida (Ant) F 1:57 Marquill Smith (C-Bow); Ant leads 34-29
126�Mike Gussarson (Ant) D 7-5 Rudolph Johnson (C-Bow); Ant leads 37-29
132�Kendall Gibbs (C-Bow) MD 9-1 Shannon Mahar (Ant); Ant wins 37-33

Antioch stopped Bowen's bid to become the only non-Lane Tech CPS school to place at the state meet by stunning Bowen 37-33. Bowen jumped out to a 7-0 lead after wins by Von Hill and Ronnie Gibbs. But Antioch took 4 of the next 5 matches to stake a 22-11 lead. Then Bowen came back to take the lead 23-22 after two straight pins by Dequence Goodman and Jacky Dezir. With 3 matches to go Bowen led 29-28 lead after a Ronzel Darling pin of Chris Ruth. But Antioch took 2 of the last 3 matches to advance to the semi-finals and deny Bowen the historic bid.

I felt one of the key matches was the 2nd to last match pitting Mike Gussarson of Antioch vs Rudolph Johnson(jr) of Bowen. Going into the match, Bowen fans has to like Johnson's chances. After all Johnson placed 6th at the state in the individual tournament. But Gussarson eweked out a 7-5 win to clinch the win for Antioch .

1st CPS Boys State Swimming Medalist in 14 years

Whitney Young freshman Mossimo Chavez(fr) placed 11th in the state in the 50 yard free style. The top 12 medal. He thus becomes the first CPS boys swimmer to medal at the state meet since Brandon Johnson of Kenwood placed 8th in the 100 yard butterfly for Kenwood in 1998.