Frantic February precedes March Madness in Winter sports for high school and college. We must throw in the National Football League in Frantic February with the Los Angeles. Rams and Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 13.
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs have created a justifiable buzz with last-second field goals and late touchdowns to decide the outcomes of playoff games. Too many college and high school games end in lopsided scores and interest wanes. The NFL long has been a proponent and practitioner of parity, especially in playoff games. Fans endorse such finishes.
College basketball for both men and women have created viable interests with parity and conference tournaments will be here before we know it.
High school State tournaments for both boys and girls have made changes. In the basketball State tournaments only one weekend will be used in all four classes, March 3-5 for girls at the Redbird Arena in Bloomington and March 10-12 for boys at the State Farm Arena in Champaign. High school State tournament steadily has been losing interest to the college basketball tournament schedules, especially with televised games in a great growth rate. In any weekend during the regular season in college basketball there may be 20 men’s games on multiple television stations and 10 women’s games. In college basketball television infancy in the 1950s there was one Big Ten Conference men’s game Saturday afternoon.
High school Winter sports tournaments started last weekend in boys bowling. Minooka High School won the State championship with an average of 216.9 to surpass second place Machesney Park Harlem’s 215.2. Joliet West (209.9) was in third place, Sandburg (207.9) in fourth place, and Lockport (204.7) in fifth place. Glenbard East was eighth with 202.7. Ethan Caruso, a sophomore from Minooka was the individual champion.
Girls bowling will be February 18-19 at The Cherry Bowl in Rockford. Boys swimming and diving will be February 26-27 at the new FMC Natatorium in Westmont for the second year, February 26-27. Wrestling will be February 17-19 at the State Farm in Champaign for the individuals and the team championships will be February 25-26 at Grossing Motors Arena in Bloomington.
The boys basketball will begin regional tournaments February 21 in all four classes. The girls will begin one week earlier.
There are many natural rivalries in view, especially in the DuKane Conference and in the DuPage Valley Conference which play the rivalry games at the same time. See page 11.
West Aurora (7-5 in the Southwest Prairie West and 12-12 overall) will be at Oswego Friday and at the three-game East Aurora special Saturday in 3:35 p.m. game against St. Charles North. East Aurora will play Oswego East at 5:05 p.m.. Aurora Christian will start against Chicago Lindblom at 2 p.m..
West Aurora head coach Brian Johnson said, “We are a team that has been up and down for much of the season. We need to find consistency. Our goal is to be playing our best basketball by the start of the regionals (February 21). We need to put together four quarters in games.
“Savion Little and Isaiah Siler have been solid for the entire season. Their efforts and understanding of what we need to accomplish to be successful shows in their play every day. Terrence Smith is a freshman we brought up (in December). He has done well.”