MSL Basketball: Hoffman's Ingwersen, Meadows' Kemph Among IBCA Hall of Fame Class of 2024
Schaumburg's Baez Helps COD to Football Three-Peat, Hersey's Harris Gets Spring Training Invite with A's
Multi-sport athletes were more prevalent when Erin Ingwersen was at Hoffman Estates in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Ingwersen was actually a four-sport varsity athlete in basketball, softball, volleyball and cross country, which she ran her junior year for conditioning for basketball. As a senior she returned to volleyball and completed a rare trifecta as a Daily Herald All-Area pick with basketball and softball.
Basketball was where Ingwersen garnered the most attention as she led Hoffman to a fourth-place finish in the 1991 Class AA state tournament as a senior. Her accomplishments put her in the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association (IBCA) Hall of Fame Class of 2024 that was announced Monday afternoon.
Ingwersen and Rolling Meadows standout Jackie Kemph are among the inductees in the players category. Fremd girls coach Dave Yates and Huntley girls coach Steve Raethz, who was an all-area player at Hoffman, will enter in the coach category. Longtime area head and assistant coach Bill Murmann will be inducted as a career coach and Maine West public address announcer Tom Sochowski will go in as a friend of basketball. The induction ceremony will be May 4, 2024 at Illinois State University.
Ingwersen had incredible success in and outside of athletics at Hoffman. She was a three-time all-area pick who finished with 1,440 career points in basketball and was a preseason All-America selection as a senior by Street & Smith’s, one of the premier basketball publications at the time. Hoffman won its first Mid-Suburban League title and finished 27-6 as Ingwersen shared all-area captain honors with Buffalo Grove’s Michele Ratay and was the first Rick Gablenz MSL South Player of the Year.
She was a two-time all-conference pick and all-area pick in volleyball and softball and an “A” student who was a member of the National Honor Society, math team and Students Against Drunk Driving. Ingwersen played in 115 games at Ohio State and was a sophomore when it finished second in the NCAA tournament and won the Big Ten title. She was also a four-year scholar athlete at the school, a three-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and the team’s co-captain as a senior.
Jackie Kemph: The dynamic point guard led Rolling Meadows to a pair of second-place state finishes in Class 4A as the Herald all-area captain in 2013 and 2014 and she was a three-time MSL East Player of the Year. She finished her high school career with more than 2,100 points and nearly 800 assists and like Ingwersen, was a multi-sport athlete who teamed with her twin sister Allie to win an MSL doubles title in tennis and qualify for state three times.
Kemph went on to become one of the best players in St. Louis University history as she was the two-time player of the year in the Atlantic 10 Conference and a three-time first-team all-conference selection. She is the program’s leader in career points (1,894), assists and games played and started.
Dave Yates: Yates just picked up his 400th victory as head coach of the Fremd girls program earlier this season and went 15-11 in one season as head coach of the Mahomet-Seymour boys team in 2001-02. Yates’ 2020 team won the 4A state title and he had two second-place teams in 2015-16 and a fourth-place finisher in 2017.
Steve Raethz: Raethz’s 1994 all-area season played a big part in Hoffman’s foundation for success under Hall of Fame coach Bill Wandro. Huntley’s girls team never had a winning season before Raethz arrived in 1999 but he has built a consistent winner and got his 400th career victory in December of last season. His 2013 team finished fourth in 4A and his 2016 team went 30-4.
Bill Murmann: The East Leyden graduate started coaching underlevel girls basketball at Schaumburg in 1983 and was 121-69 as its head coach with three sectional final trips and two MSL West titles. Murmann won 104 games at St. Viator and the school’s first regional title in 2002, was an assistant at Bartlett and is currently an assistant at Wheeling. Murmann was also a longtime football assistant at Schaumburg and St. Viator.
Tom Sochowski: Sochowski’s booming and distinctive voice has added to the atmosphere of Maine West boys and girls basketball for decades as a PA announcer.
To see the complete list of the IBCA Hall of Fame Class of 2024 click the box below.
Schaumburg’s Baez Helps COD Grab Football Three-Peat
Time looked as if it might be running out on the hopes of a third straight NJCAA Division III national football championship for the College of DuPage as it trailed Rochester Community and Technical College (Minn.) by 3 points with a little more than a minute to play on Saturday in Glen Ellyn.
Then sophomore wide receiver Fabian Baez (Schaumburg) ran under a pass from backup quarterback Robert Brazziel in the left corner of the end zone for a 16-yard touchdown on third-and-goal with 1:03 to play to give COD (11-1) a dramatic 33-29 victory.
It was the only catch of the day for the 6-foot-3, 205-pound Baez, who was a Daily Herald Cook County Honorable Mention All-Area pick in the 2001 fall season. Brazziel, who was starting for the injured Peyton O’Laughlin, was originally looking for tight end Braden Downs on the play.
"I checked down and looked left and saw Fabian in the corner,'' Brazziel said on the COD website. "It looked good going out and Fabian looked even better making the catch.''
Baez finished the season as COD’s top receiver with 17 catches for 354 yards (20.8 average) and 6 TDs, according to team statistics. Freshman linebacker Kellon King, who played at Palatine, had 7 tackles (3 solos) and a sack in the title game and finished the season with 59 tackles, 4 tackles for losses and an interception.
COD’s co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach Dan Davis, who just finished his sixth season on the staff, was a defensive coordinator at Hoffman Estates from 1991-2003 and at Fremd from 2009-16. Offensive coordinator Joel Beard went 4-5 as McHenry’s interim head coach in 2022 and was also the school’s athletic director.
Hersey’s Harris Gets A’s Spring Invite
Hersey grad Brett Harris is one of 22 non-roster invitees to the A’s 2024 Spring Training camp. Harris, a seventh-round draft pick out of Gonzaga in 2021, is one of six infielders on the list.
Harris recently completed play in the Arizona Fall League for big-league prospects and hit .192 with 15 walks in 17 games and 52 at-bats. He committed only 1 error in 13 games and 35 chances at third base for a .971 fielding percentage.
Last season, Harris had a slash line of .279/.383/.424 and an OPS of .807 with 9 homers, 23 doubles and 62 RBI in 105 games and 387 at-bats at Class AA Midland (Texas) and AAA Las Vegas. In 147 at-bats at Vegas he hit .271 with 4 homers and 14 RBI.
Meadows’ O’Hara Signs with Quad City of Indoor Football League
Rolling Meadows 2017 grad Asher O’Hara signed with the Quad City Steamwheelers of the Indoor Football League in an announcement O’Hara made on Twitter on Dec. 1. The announcement has O’Hara signed as a quarterback with the team that reached the IFL championship game in 2022 and was 9-7 in 2023.
O’Hara finished his college career with two seasons at Sacramento State in 2021-22. He was a third-team All-American in the Football Championship Series and a two-time all-Big Sky Conference pick as an all-purpose player after he threw for 1,772 yards and 18 TDs and ran for 1,599 and 28 TDs. He spent three years at Middle Tennessee State and in 2020 was second-team all-Conference USA with 1,960 yards passing and 12 TDs and 601 rushing and 7 TDs. He also played at the College of DuPage in 2017 and threw for 1,814 yards and 15 TDs.
The Quad City Steamwheelers joined the 14-team IFL in 2019 and started in 2000 in the Arena Football League’s AF2. They begin their 16-game schedule March at home at the Vibrant Arena at THE MARK in Moline.
Swanny Ends Long Run with Bethel Football
Paul Swan, who has been a coach for all seasons at Stevenson for more than a half-century, had added assistant football coaching duties at Bethel University in Minnesota to his resume in 2002. Swanny, as he’s affectionately known, often referred to it as a “great day to be a Royal” during his tenure as running backs coach and video coordinator, which came to an end with his retirement following a trip to the Division III playoffs this season.
Swan has been at Stevenson since 1969 and is back as an assistant to new head coach Will Benson, who came in from Huntley after Pat Ambrose retired. Swan has also been a head coach and assistant in baseball and an assistant in football for the Patriots. His son Eric played football for Bethel from 1996-99.
Roberts Reaches 200-Win Milestone for Jacobs Basketball
Jacobs’ Jimmy Roberts reached the 200-win mark for his boys basketball coaching career last week. Roberts came into this season at 180-113 at Jacobs since taking over in 2013 and he spent three seasons at Round Lake (2010-13). Roberts’ 2017 team led by future Loyola Final Four star big man Cameron Krutwig went 30-2 and lost in the Class 4A supersectional 37-36 to unbeaten Fremd.
Jim Hinkle, who preceded Roberts before retiring, is Jacobs’ winningest coach at 281-200 in 17 years. Roberts was a Daily Herald All-Area standout at Lake Zurich and his dad Rich had successful tenures as a head football coach and head boys basketball coach at Buffalo Grove.
Barrington Hosts 2024 American Legion State Tournament
Barrington will have the chance to defend its 2023 American Legion baseball state tournament on its home turf at Kirby Smith Field. The announcement was made on the Illinois American Legion Baseball Twitter account. Wheaton will host the Great Lakes Regional.
Barrington holds the record for state titles with nine (all since 1978) by one over Arlington and Belleville.
Will Long MSL Boys Hoops Repeat Drought Continue?
The last two Mid-Suburban League boys basketball champions met Friday when Barrington beat defending champ Palatine 45-43 in Friday’s West division opener. The 10 years since Schaumburg won back-to-back titles in 2012-13 is the longest stretch without a repeat champion in MSL boys basketball history.
The longest stretch previously without a repeat champion was six years. Wheeling won back-to-back titles in the pre-division era in 1968-69 (sharing the first one with Prospect) and then Buffalo Grove won three consecutive MSL crowns from 1976-78.