The Wildkits 2007-08 Year in Sports

By Joe Linstroth

The RoundTable sat down with Chris Livatino, athletic director of Evanston Township High School, to recap some of the highlights from an impressive 2007-08 year in sports and talk about the future of ETHS athletics.

• No surprise, the biggest story of the year was the boys basketball team's third-place finish at the state tournament. Sixteen buses crammed with students made the trek to Peoria, where the Wildkits lost a semifinal heartbreaker to Zion Benton
on a last-second 40-foot heave. Hovering near the top all season, the team showed "tremendous heart," said Livatino, rebounding from the devastating loss to beat Lockport for third in state and finish with an impressive 30-4 record.
• In the pool, Grace Borchers, Jane Munro, Kristina Walsh and Anne Frigo set a new state record in the 200-yard medley relay, nipping the old mark, set by Naperville Central in 2005, by .16 seconds. The girls swim team finished eighth at the state meet.
• Boys cross country qualified for the state finals as a team for the first time since 1999.
• Boys wrestling posted a 28-5 record and senior grappler Marx Succes Jr. was a state qualifier.
• Girls water polo qualified for the state's Elite 8, finishing fifth.
• Led by Zach Morton's 3-hitter, the Wildkit baseball team blanked New Trier, which was undefeated at the time, 10-0.
• Adrienne Slaughter helped the Girls track & field squad to a seventh-place finish at the state meet by taking second in the 400m and fourth in the 200m.
• Morton was Central Suburban League Conference Player of the Year in both basketball and baseball. "I'm not sure if that's ever happened before," said Livatino.
• From Amherst College to the University of Puget Sound, a number of ETHS senior athletes will continue their athletic careers at the next level. Among those who received athletic scholarships are Zach Morton, Northwestern University (baseball); Grace Borchers, Indiana University (swimming); and Anne Frigo, Delaware University (swimming).

Off the Field
Wildkit athletes fared well in the classroom as well. ETHS requires student-athletes to maintain a 2.0 grade-point-average, a mark far stricter than the one set by the Illinois High School Association, which requires that student-athletes maintain "passing" grades.

"We are always one of the toughest [in Illinois]," said Livatino.

Among the top academic teams were: girls gymnastics (3.69 cumulative GPA), girls basketball (3.67), boys basketball (3.4), boys swimming (3.4), and boys wrestling (3.09).

Livatino pointed to the activity fee, instituted this year, as another contribution to the success of this year's athletes. The $85 fee ($5-10 for students on free or reduced lunch) helped restore 30 different stipends that were cut three years ago, Livatino said, 20 of which went to athletic coaches.

"In high school especially, the coach is extremely important to the success of the team," he said. Some coaches were volunteers during the last two years, he said, and some quit because "they just couldn't do it for free."

"I had whole level teams - freshmen, sophomore teams - run by volunteer coaches," said Livatino. "That's not what you do in a high school athletic program."

After hiring seven new coaches in his first two years as athletic director, Livatino said he is hopeful the stipends will add some consistency and stability to the athletic program.

The Lighter Side
This fall the football team will play its first-ever home game under the lights. With the help of private donations, bonds and a $200,000 grant from the National Football League, Lazier Field at Memorial Stadium will undergo a makeover this summer. In addition to new lights, the natural grass field will be replaced with the same artificial FieldTurf surface used by many universities and NFL teams. Gone will be the numerous postponements and cancellations due to poor field conditions and, Livatino said, the nearly $50,000 annual cost of maintaining the grass field.

"Our athletic facilities are going to be vastly improved," he said.

Two softball fields and one baseball field will also be replaced, said Livatino, with a total cost for resurfacing all four fields reaching $2 million.

Speaking of stuck in the mud, after a disappointing 1-8 season, the once-proud football program appeared to be knee-deep in it until last January, when ETHS brought in Mike Burzawa to help rebuild the program. An offensive guru, Burzawa led Driscoll Catholic in Addison, Ill., to three consecutive Class 4A state championships. It should be interesting to see how long it takes before his high-scoring spread offense, which powered Driscoll Catholic to a 41-1 record over three years, takes hold at Evanston.

"[Burzawa] is a great hire for us," said Livatino.

With seven conference championships and five top-10 finishes in the state, the 2007-08 athletes set the bar high for future athletes at ETHS - a bar that Livatino would like to see notched even higher in the coming years.

"[With] the coaching staff we have in place and with all the facility changes," said Livatino, "we're restoring the tradition of the glory years you used to hear about in the 1950s and 60s."

ETHS Wildkits 2007-08 Highlights

Central Suburban League (CSL)
Conference Championships: 7
Boys Cross Country, Girls Swimming, Boys Basketball, Boys and Girls Track & Field, Girls Badminton, Boys Volleyball

Ranked Top 10 in State: 5
Boys Basketball (3), Girls Lacrosse (5), Girls Water Polo (5), Girls Track & Field (7), Girls Swimming (8)

Other notable finishes in State:
Girls Badminton (14), Girls Basketball (23)

Top 10 in Nation: 1
The Pomkits dance squad placed first at a statewide competition against 22 other teams and sixth at a national competition in Orlando, Fla.

Top Individual Performances
Illinois State Record:
Girls Swimming, 200-yard medley relay (1:45:08)
Grace Borchers (senior), Anne Frigo
(senior), Jane Munro (sophomore),
Kristina Walsh (sophomore)

ETHS School Record:
Ben McBratney (senior); Boys Swimming, 100-yard breaststroke (59.6 seconds)

Top 10 in State

Girls Swimming: Grace Borchers; 100-yard backstroke (5), 100-yard freestyle (6)

Girls Badminton: Meredith Nelson
(senior); singles (9)

Girls Track & Field:
4x400m relay team (2)
Amber Jackson, Brittany Tolar,
Adrienne Slaughter, Danyale Griffin.
Adrienne Slaughter (junior);
200m (4), 400m (2)
Amanda Caines (sophomore);
triple jump (5)

Boys Track & Field:
4x800m relay team (5)
Lars Kohlman, Marique Stephenson, Sean Klamm, and Sam LeVon

CSL Player of the Year:
Zach Morton (senior),
basketball and baseball

ETHS Athletes of the Year:
Zach Morton
Grace Borchers