Harper football gears up; volleyball wins N4C title

Harper College's football team is in the postseason.

But the Hawks (4-4, 3-4) don't want to limp in to the playoffs as they finish Midwest Football Conference regular-season play at 1 p.m. Saturday at Rock Valley (2-6, 1-6) in Rockford.

And where the Hawks will be seeded when the East division playoffs start next weekend is still in doubt with Joliet (5-2 MFC East) at Grand Rapids (4-3) and College of DuPage (4-3) at Ellsworth.

"We really need to win our game to make sure we're in good position for the first week of the playoffs," said Harper coach Dragan Teonic. "I'm scared of a potential letdown if we think too far ahead.

"A loss Saturday and we're definitely the fourth seed and that's not good. We have to get some momentum going to the playoffs."

The good sign in last week's 21-14 win over Ellsworth was the defense led by Aaron Miller, Aaron Diggs, Ron Celli, Erik Fossen and Kyle Jenkins contained one of the league's top running games to 250 total yards on 87 plays.

"That's awesome," Teonic said. "That's great work."

The offense was also effective with Garrett Barnas (1,840 yards passing, 15 TDs) throwing for scores to John Baldwin, Brian Mitz and Brian Whitehead. And the special teams was doing well until a couple of late breakdowns.

"We have yet to put the whole thing together," Teonic said. "When we do we'll be tough to beat."

Teonic would love to see it going into the playoffs. Rock Valley lost 16-0 last week to Grand Rapids and 51-7 two weeks ago to Joliet.

Rock Valley also had to forfeit a 30-17 win over Ellsworth.

"What's scary about Rock Valley is they beat NIACC, which really beat us up pretty good," Teonic said, "and they beat Ellsworth (in Rockford)."

Volleyball triple play: Harper won its third straight N4C volleyball title Thursday night with a 30-24, 30-21, 30-22 victory at Joliet.

Harper (27-21, 7-1) split with Rock Valley in N4C play after a 24-30, 30-26, 27-30, 30-24, 10-15 loss last week in Rockford. But the Hawks did have the advantage in overall N4C games with a 23-4 record to Rock Valley's 22-7.

"That's a pretty phenomenal run," Harper coach Bob Vilsoet said of his team's 22-2 N4C record the last three years. "They have totally impressed me from Day 1."

One of the big keys has been freshman Christy Lima (Rolling Meadows), who had 11 kills and 4 blocks against Joliet.

"She was a mortal player at the beginning of the year and something clicked a the middle of the year," Vilsoet said. "She's turned a corner."

Lisa LaMasse (10 blocks, 8 kills), Angie Skonieczny (7 blocks), Nikki Maize (34 assists, 10 digs), Aprille Richter (9 kills, 15 digs) and Diane Janik (13 digs) led the Hawks to their share of the title.

Harper fell from fifth to eighth in this week's NJCAA Division III poll and gets a good test Tuesday with its last home game against McHenry, which is rated 15th in Division II.

Another shot at Joliet: Maybe playing Joliet in October will be the difference for the Harper women's soccer team.

The third-seeded Hawks (5-6-1) are at Joliet at 3 p.m. Tuesday for a Region IV semifinal. The winner would play at top-seed COD for the title Saturday.

Harper lost to Joliet 4-1 on Aug. 28 and tied 1-1 on Sept. 26.

"I think we'll be ready," said Harper coach Dwayne Cruz. "I definitely think we're the better team. Early on we didn't have (all) the kids and last time we didn't finish."

Cruz said the Hawks defense has been coming into its own and the attacking is getting better.

"If Sam (Witczak) and Jenna (Schneider) do their jobs up top," Cruz said, "they won't be able to touch us."

More Wolves: Nothing was set Thursday night, but Harper men's soccer coach Jason Diebold thought his team would play its Region IV semifinal Wednesday at Joliet.

Harper (4-7-1) split their meetings -- a 1-0 loss and 3-0 win -- and comes in off a 4-3 win over Waubonsee on goals by Donato Pesce, Allan Ramirez, Jesus Tejeda and Wally Madsen.

Diebold said Pesce, Bartosz Krupinski and Todor Stefanov have played well coming into the tourney.

"The guys are playing much better now," Diebold said. "We're much, much more consistent."

A good tuneup: The Harper men's cross country team took three of the top four spots and finished second by 2 points to Lincoln College in the Sauk Valley Invitational.

Jesus Escareno (Rolling Meadows) won the 10K race in 27:13 and Tim Hoskinson (Hoffman Estates) was second (27:17). Matt Damhauser (Hoffman) took fourth (28:01).

Tabitha Thomas (20:22) and Heather Cebulko (20:28) finished seventh and eighth in the women's race. Harper's next race is the Region IV meet Oct. 27 at Moraine Valley.