A Little Extra: Schambow On the Mark in Leading Libertyville's Perfect Start
Barrington's Kamradt and Indiana's 5-0 Start; Hoffman's Heyse, Hersey's Starr Honored by Bears; Look at MSL Boys Golf History; Big Honor for Maine West Grad Randy Ross
Nobody may be perfect but Libertyville senior quarterback Quinn Schambow was about as close as you can get Friday night at Mundelein.
And Schambow’s remarkable 23-for-24 passing marksmanship for 322 yards and 5 touchdowns in a 42-0 victory at Mundelein gave the Wildcats their first perfect start after 5 games since the 2015 team went 13-1 and lost in the Class 7A state championship game.
“He’s a special player,” said Mundelein coach Johnny Cowhey. “You try to game plan against him to take away the deep ball. As our defense got tired he got more time and he was able to connect on some deep balls.”
On his first touchdown pass, Schambow patiently sat in the pocket for what seemed to be an eternity before he finally fired a 17-yarder to Blaise LaVista slicing across the end zone. But he can also find LaVista, Stevan Gavric, Sam Seth, tight end Brock Williams and others on the move.
And Army-bound Rhett VanBoening, Sawyer Kopala, Andrew Langfeldt, Max Frazin and Myles Batesky make sure Schambow, a standout catcher who is committed to Oklahoma State, can do what he needs to move an offense averaging 41 points a game.
“It’s been a ton of fun to see how our offense has been conducting themselves,” VanBoening said. “Quinn makes us look really good. He praises us big-time and it’s good to have someone like that.”
Schambow has 26 touchdown passes and just 1 interception after he had 31 touchdowns and 6 interceptions last year. Schambow and his linemen go to dinner on Thursdays before games.
“Playing with them the past three years has been great,” Schambow said. “We’ve all really matured and love each other. We have a great bond.”
Libertyville has already matched its win total from a year ago when it lost in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs.
“We expect to win every single game this year,” Schambow said, “but we’re not taking anyone lightly. 5-0 doesn’t matter because were 0-0 going into next week.”
That attitude was evident on Libertyville’s first possession when it drove 65 yards in 8 plays and just 2:31. Schambow was 5-for-5 for 53 yards and the only play of less than 6 yards was Steven Strelow’s 1-yard touchdown.
“As a team we’re definitely more mature and we know how to conduct ourselves in a responsible, disciplined manner,” VanBoening said. “Our theme of the year is discipline.
“We always focus on the first drive and coming out hot. We want to strike fear into our opponents in a way and put our defense in a good position to continue the momentum.”
Libertyville coach Mike Jones, who has led the program since 2012, has also seen a big difference this year.
“We’ve been telling them we’re not a run-of-the-mill team,” Jones said. “They’ve got maturity and they’ve grown up a ton from last year, although there are still things to improve on.”
Kamradt Part Of Indiana’s Last 5-0 Start
Indiana’s 5-0 start under new head coach Curt Cignetti is its best since the 1967 Big Ten championship team that made the school’s only Rose Bowl appearance. Retired Barrington head coach Al Kamradt, who led the 1998 team to second place in Class 6A, was a junior tight end with the Hoosiers in their historic season 57 years ago.
Kamradt caught 2 passes for 22 yards that season as Indiana went 9-2 and finished the season ranked fourth in the country. The Hoosiers lost 14-3 in the Rose Bowl to USC and O.J. Simpson.
Kamradt, a two-time all-stater at Taft on Chicago’s Northwest side, was a three-year letterwinner at Indiana. He caught 14 passes for 159 passes as a sophomore when the team went 1-8 and had a 2-point conversion for a 6-4 team his senior year. From there he came to Barrington and was the sophomore coach for 20 years before taking over as head coach in 1990 when Tony Rasmussen retired.
“When we’d write essays about what we wanted to be when you grow up, it was pretty clear cut what I wanted to do,” Kamradt said of becoming a teacher and coach the week before the 1998 title game.
And there was no place Kamradt wanted to work besides Barrington. He went 68-49 in 12 seasons and his .581 winning percentage is 12th among MSL coaches (minimum 75 games). He is fourth in victories in school history behind Joe Sanchez (168, 2002-current), Bill Graham (105, 1963-78) and Tom Frederick (80, 1950-62). It was also where he and his wife Sharon raised their kids Brad and Lindsey.
“This is the place I felt comfortable in and they were great guys to work for (Plaskas, Graham, Rasmussen),” Kamradt said. “We had a good program going. I always felt I’d rather be an assistant in a good program than go off and be a head coach someplace where they were trying to build one.”
MSL Football Coaches Winning Percentage
.742 - Matt Mishler (Rolling Meadows, 72-25)
.720 - Joe Petricca (Palatine, 103-40)
.709 - Joe Sanchez (Barrington, 168-69)
.673 - Grant Blaney (Buffalo Grove, 111-54)
.658 - Brent Pearlman (Prospect/Wheeling, 121-63)
.653 - Tim Heyse (Hoffman Estates, 49-26)
.649 - Joe Pardun (Hersey, 50-27)
.646 - Mike Donatucci (Fremd/Hoffman Estates, 153-84)
.630 - Tyler Donnelly (Palatine, 53-31)
.617 - John Ayres (Conant, 71-44)
.609 - Dave Pendergast (Conant, 115-74)
.581 - Al Kamradt (Barrington, 68-49)
.578 - Fred Lussow (Forest View/Rolling Meadows, 100-73)
.574 - Don Schnake (Elk Grove, 100-74-1)
.562 - Rich Roberts (Buffalo Grove/Prospect, 109-85)
.551 - Joe Gliwa (Hersey/Prospect, 87-71)
(Minimum 75 games - as of Sept. 30, 2024)
Heyse Rewarded for Success at Hoffman Estates
One of my biggest memories of Tim Heyse was a gutsy effort as Conant’s quarterback in the 1994 regular-season finale. He started and played on a badly sprained ankle in a 14-0 loss where crosstown rival Hoffman Estates clinched its third consecutive MSL South title and fifth consecutive playoff berth under Jim Rucks.
Now Heyse has built sustained success in his eighth year in charge of the program and was recognized for it as the Chicago Bears Coach of the Week after the team’s 4-0 start. While Hoffman lost an undefeated showdown with Fremd on Friday, Heyse’s 49-26 record moves him into sixth in MSL football history winning percentage at .653 (minimum 75 games).
Heyse started his coaching career under Rucks at Hoffman and took over in 2017 after Mike Donatucci retired. The Hawks have made the postseason five times in Heyse’s tenure and are going for a fourth consecutive appearance this season.
Bears Recognize Hersey’s Flag Football Starr
Hersey’s inaugural season of girls flag football has been a rousing success with a 9-1 start. Head coach Starr Dorsey was recognized for her leadership as the Bears Flag Football Coach of the Week for Week 3.
Dorsey is the daughter of a high school offensive coordinator, according to the release from the Bears, and it said she “has carried on the family legacy with her extensive football knowledge and ability to lead, motivate and inspire her team.”
Dorsey’s ability to inspire her students with cognitive disabilities in Hersey’s Career Life Skills program was also cited by the Bears. Her players work with CLS students “who have quickly become some of the Huskies’ biggest fans.”
Tee-ing Up MSL Boys Golf History
It would be tough to find a better golf name than Fremd’s Rayden Tee, who had a record-setting day for himself and his team in the MSL boys golf tournament last week. Tee’s 2-under-par 66 at Arlington Lakes broke the MSL tournament record of 67 by Palatine’s Nick Zambole (1976), Prospect’s Nick Tenuta (2016) and Buffalo Grove’s Connor Woodin (2023).
The 67s were 5-under for Zambole at the now-closed Indian Lakes Golf Course in Bloomingdale and for Tenuta at Buffalo Grove Golf Club. Woodin was 3-under last year at Mount Prospect Country Club.
Fremd (281) and Barrington (287) broke the 18-hole MSL tourney record and Hersey (294) matched the previous mark set in 1983 by Prospect under George Bork. That was a first-round score for the Knights as they finished with a record 605 when the tourney was a two-day event from 1977-1993. Fremd and coach Ryan Moreau also won their first overall, tournament and dual meet titles since 2008 under Josh Teschner.
A lot has changed with advances in equipment, courses and their difficulty and weather conditions of play at different times of the year to impact records since the first MSL golf tournament in 1964. We now have a page set up with a lot of MSL boys golf history facts and figures so hopefully you’ll check it out. And there will be more to come from all the sports in the MSL.
Maine West Grad Ross Joins Baseball Royalty
Randy Ross is in some rarefied baseball air to be mentioned alongside names like Mike Schmidt, Roger Clemens and Mark Teixiera. Ross, a 1980 Maine West graduate who starred in college at North Park, is part of the 17th induction class into the College Baseball Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony will be February 13, 2025 in Overland Park, Kansas.
Ross is one of the top Division III players in college baseball history. He was a three-time first-team American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) All-America selection (1982-84) at shortstop and a four-time all-College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) pick (1981-84). He is believed to be the first D-III player to be a three-time All-America pick.
His .470 average was the highest in D-III history when he retired and he slugged .767 with an OPS of 1.292. He also stole 93 career bases and struck out just 20 times in four seasons and received the CCIW’s Jack Horenberger Most Outstanding Player award in 1983.
Ross was chosen in the 15th round of the 1983 Major League Baseball draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers after his junior season but returned to North Park and became the first member of his family to graduate from college. He was an all-Central Suburban South selection in 1980 along with teammate Jim Lindeman, a first-round pick in 1983 who played in the big leagues for nine seasons and had a successful coaching career at Rolling Meadows.
After Ross was drafted, he told the Daily Herald’s Terry Bannon he was only recruited by North Park, St. Francis (Joliet) and Oakton. He was scouted by former Maine East and Maine South coach Glen Van Proyen, a longtime Dodgers scout who signed future big-leaguer Mike Marshall out of Buffalo Grove.
“My stats weren’t that good coming out of high school,” Ross told Bannon, best-known at the Herald for his Bears coverage. “I wasn’t anything special.”
Now he is along with some of the best who ever played the game.
Barrington will induct Mike Obsuszt, Jody Gitelis and Denny Sander into its Hall of Fame on Friday, October 18. The formal recognition ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. and Obsuszt, Gitelis and Sander will also be recognized at halftime of the 7:30 p.m. football game with Hoffman Estates.
Obsuszt served as the athletic director and boys basketball coach, Gitelis was the highly successful girls track and field coach who won a state title and Sander was instrumental in the success of the softball program as an assistant coach for Perry Peterson.
Stevenson recognized its five newest Athletics Hall of Fame inductees over the weekend in Kyle Brandt (football), Katie Coleman (basketball), Ian Cronin (track and field), Tom Loew (athletic trainer) and Mike Morrissey (football and basketball).
Palatine inducted Mary Ahern-Kaminski (volleyball, Class of ‘86) and Glenn Morris (cross country and track and field, Class of 2006) into its Hall of Fame on Sept. 13.