Next stop, Paris? Stevenson grad wins NCAA floor exercise
Perhaps we’ll see him at the Paris Olympics...
University of Michigan gymnast and graduate student Paul Juda (Stevenson High School) won the floor exercise at the NCAA Championships in April on the campus of The Ohio State University. Winning his fourth individual title at Michigan, Juda helped the Wolverines to second place in team standings behind Stanford.
A Team USA member and the 2022 NCAA all-around champion, in April Juda executed All-America finishes on floor, rings (tied for sixth), vault (second) and all-around (fourth). In 2023 Juda won the College Gymnastics Association’s highest honor, the Nissen-Emery Award.
Missouri Valley Conference State Farm MVC Good Neighbor Award honorees this spring include Drake junior track athlete Savannah Ming (West Aurora) and Bradley graduate-student golfer Mara Flaherty (Naperville North).
Drake’s fourth-fastest woman ever at 60 meters, Ming is studying psychology and rhetoric media & social change. She volunteers for the Des Moines Public Schools, the Genesis Foundation and works at the LadyLike DSM Conference to empower black women.
Flaherty graduated summa cum laude in manufacturing engineering and owns a 4.0 grade-point average in master’s business administration. This year’s vice president of the Braves Council, on April 29 Flaherty’s numerous community service activities earned her Bradley’s Carl Grose Service Award for a second straight year.
Jack Hipchen (Fremd), a senior attack and midfielder on the Adelphi University men’s lacrosse team in New York, earned first-team all-conference honors in the Northeast 10 conference. Among five first-team selections from the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association’s No. 4 team in Division II, through 15 games Hipchen had scored 10 goals with 6 assists and grabbed 36 ground balls.
At the Indiana State Sycamore Open on April 27, DePauw University freshman Shelby Stall (Lakes) set a program record in the 200-meter dash, at 24.80 seconds. Earlier this season she was named track MVP at DePauw’s Indiana DIII Invitational, and before that Stall earned North Coast Athletic Conference track athlete of the week for setting DePauw records in the 400 and as part of the 1600 relay.
At the Wake Forest Invitational on April 19, Columbia University junior Charlie Siebert (New Trier) set the program 5000-meter record with a time of 13 minutes, 49.91 seconds.
Penn State redshirt sophomore libero Ryan Merk (Loyola Academy) earned American Volleyball Coaches Association second-team All-America honors. An honorable-mention pick last season, through May 1 Merk led the NCAA in sets (116) and was tied for third with 245 digs.
Princeton senior Ben Harrington (Glenbard West), McKendree junior Kevin Schuele (St. Francis), Lindenwood sophomore Ian Schuller (Downers Grove North) and George Mason sophomore Paul Wyszynski (Glenbrook North) earned AVCA honorable-mention.