St. Charles E. gets trophy after all

Someday soon, a truck will pull up at St. Charles East High School to deliver hardware the girls cross country team earned but was initially denied last Saturday in Peoria.

In the Class 3A state championship at Detweiller Park there was a turn of events in the team standings. As results were posted, Saints coach Denise Hefferin saw her runners — Torree Scull, Sarah Hill, Mallory Abel, Jessica Evans, Kristin Sheehan, Lizzie Deutsch and Maddie Westerhoff — had finished fourth behind New Trier, Wheaton Warrenville South and Naperville North.

“I didn’t even look at the numbers,” Hefferin said.

The numbers listed Naperville North and St. Charles East with the same point total, 183. After the initial declaration, Hefferin and Naperville North coach Dan Iverson were called back to the officials tent and informed both teams would share third place, and each team would eventually get a trophy and medallions that went with it.

“We’re jumping up and down, hugging, ecstatic,” Hefferin said Tuesday. “All the parents were running back to tell the girls.”

Then, however, rather than use Illinois High School Association precedent — like the 1999 third-place tie between Naperville North and Lake Forest — as well as a rule in the IHSA’s cross country manual, officials again reversed their decision. They cited a National Federation of High Schools ruling that breaks ties based on the finish of each team’s sixth runner. Naperville North, whose sixth runner finished before St. Charles East’s, was awarded third place and the Saints fourth.

Hefferin, herself and the Saints in “an emotional flux,” congratulated Iverson again before the team left to watch the girls volleyball team win the York supersectional.

“Let’s hold our heads high and move on,” she said. “The only thing I was disappointed with was how it was handled.”

She was not alone.

“I had a dozen coaches calling me and telling me I need to fight it,” Hefferin said.

She informed St. Charles East co-athletic directors Jim Bloch and Jack Drollinger what went on. Over the weekend the IHSA reviewed the decision. On Monday morning the IHSA’s Ron McGraw, an assistant executive director responsible for cross country, called St. Charles East with an apology as well as the news that the Saints would indeed share third place. An email from the IHSA on Monday said a consistent procedure to handle tie situations will be discussed by a future advisory committee meeting.

Hefferin realized the IHSA held no malice in the initial ruling, and was satisfied with the final outcome.

“They did the right thing,” she said. “They’re doing what’s best for the kids in this situation.”

On Tuesday St. Charles East Principal Charlie Kyle declared the official third-place finish during the school’s morning announcements. Though the girls did not receive public acknowledgment at the awards podium in Peoria, they’ll soon get their photo opportunity at a school ceremony.

“They felt like they were third,” Hefferin said. “The trophy is kind of like an added bonus.”

All in the family

When West Aurora athletic director Andy Lutzenkirchen sees his nephew, Philip, “I still see that little kid.”

Others see Auburn’s 6-foot-5, 250-pound junior tight end as a future pro football prospect.

Philip Lutzenkirchen, who holds Auburn’s single-season mark for touchdowns by a tight end with 5 both this season and in 2010, comes from an athletic family with local ties.

Andy himself played quarterback for the first Wheaton Central (now Wheaton Warrenville South) football team to reach a state championship, his senior year in 1990.

Philip’s mother, the former Mary Meier, was a Wheaton Central cheerleader. His father and Mary’s classmate, Mike, was the Tigers’ starting quarterback as a junior and also a starting forward on the Tigers’ 1981 fourth-place Class 2A basketball team. They reside in Marietta, Ga., where Philip was a top college recruit out of Lassiter High School.

Andy attended the Auburn-Florida game on Oct. 15, and after the game when meeting with Philip other fans were “in awe” of the converted quarterback with great hands.

Andy and Mike admit that Philip’s rise to prominence is “surreal,” but those who know the Lutzenkirchens also know their humility.

“He’s very proud,” Andy said of his brother, “but he’s not calling the papers and saying there should be more coverage of Philip.”

The big tight end is not the only young star in the family. One of Mary and Mike’s daughters, Ann, played soccer at Winthrop University. Another daughter, Abby, a senior at Lassiter, has committed to play soccer for Alabama.

“We have no clue where the athleticism comes from,” Andy joked. “We think the Meiers.”

The regal Regole

Marmion Academy will dedicate its new Regole Field House in a public ceremony at 2 p.m. Sunday, followed by an open house.

The 36,150-square-foot addition is named in honor of Edward and Vivienne Regole of St. Charles and in memory of Edward Regole’s parents, Gertrude and Maurice Sr. Edward and Vivienne Regole’s personal gift and Gertrude’s estate gift underwrote the bulk of the $5.3 million cost of the project. Edward is a 1950 Marmion graduate.

The Regole Field House, connected to the east side of Marmion’s Alumni Hall, offers three basketball courts with an overlapping competition court; three tennis courts, a four-lane, 160-meter track with six-lane straightaways; track field event facilities; two batting cages for baseball and golf; and storage areas.

“The new Regole Field House will provide relief for the many competing time demands for floor space,” Marmion athletic director Joe Chivari stated in a news release.

The Field House was part of a $26 million campaign drive that also included improved campus infrastructure, renovation of the science classrooms, new outdoor playing fields and courts and extensive improvements to Fichtel Field.

Three of a kind

For a school whose IHSA enrollment is listed at 562 students, for Aurora Christian to field three Division I baseball players is uncommon.

On Wednesday, however, Mitch Holtz, Jake Hanson and Bobby Kutzendorf signed their letters of intent to Penn, Valparaiso and Northern Illinois, respectively.

“I think it’s very rare as far as having multiple players going Division i, especially for a school of our size,” said Eagles baseball coach Andy Zorger. “I could see it maybe from a 4A school or a big public school.

“It’s pretty rare to find this type of talent in the same class. It’s exciting for me as a coach.”

Holtz — who unfortunately may have suffered a football season-ending knee injury in last week’s game against Oregon — hit .380 last spring as the Eagles’ outfielder, number-two pitcher and clean up hitter.

“He’s just been one of those athletes that come around once in awhile,” said Zorger, an Indiana boy married to 2001 Aurora Christian graduate Rachel Stone, whose father, Dan, is a former Aurora Christian girls basketball coach.

Hanson, now in basketball workouts under Eagles varsity coach Steve Hanson, his father, has been the baseball team’s starting catcher since his freshman year. Like Holtz, Jake Hanson was on the 26-11 baseball team that reached the Class 2A supersectional in 2009. Zorger let him call his own pitches even as a freshman.

Kutzendorf, the team’s No. 1 pitcher, went 9-1 with an earned-run average of 1.28 and 128 strikeouts as a junior. He’s been up on varsity since his sophomore season, when the left-hander recorded a 0.89 ERA with around 90 strikeouts, Zorger said.

“I have appreciated their hard work and determination as far as being leaders for the team,” Zorger said. “They didn’t get to where they are just on talent alone. It was putting in time in the batting cage and the weight room. I appreciate their work ethic and desire to be the best they can be.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com