You never know who is watching

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

This is one of those you-never-know-who’s-watching stories.

Huntley’s Taylor Henning-Fletter hadn’t given serious thought to Western Illinois University before last spring regarding her soccer future. She had looked at other schools, but WIU was not on the list.

Western coach Tony Guinn came to see the Red Raiders at Libertyville because he was interested in Cori Wronski, who later committed to NCAA Division II Upper Iowa and was selected as the Northwest Herald Player of the Year. But something about Henning-Fletter caught Guinn’s attention.

“On the way home, coach [Kris] Grabner was like, ‘He really liked you,’ ” said Henning-Fletter, who will be a senior.

WIU shot up Henning-Fletter’s list. She visited in June, then committed to the D-I school July 7, just after making a visit to Upper Iowa.

“I was coming back from an injury in that game and played 20 or 30 minutes,” Henning-Fletter said. “I was kind of disappointed in how I played.”

Still, Guinn saw enough to know he wanted Henning-Fletter. She was recruited as a center midfielder, the position she normally plays with Crystal Lake Force Elite, her travel team. She played forward in high school.

Henning-Fletter originally was interested in the Air Force Academy but decided the commitment could be too much. She also received interest from Illinois State, Middle Tennessee and Austin Peay.

Chargers honored: Dundee-Crown recently learned that it had received the IHSA Sportsmanship Award from the Class 4A State Boys Basketball Tournament last season.

The Chargers were the first Fox Valley Conference boys team to make it to the state tournament, where they took fourth place.

Schools at state team competitions are judged for the sportsmanship of their coaches, players and fans by various IHSA representatives, who then vote for the winning school in that class.

D-C athletic director Dick Storm had not heard anything about the award for a few months and was pleasantly surprised when he heard the news.

“We take a lot of pride in that, and we had a lot of fun,’’ Storm said. “Our fans were good, and our kids behaved the whole year. It was a nice close to the season.”

• Joe Stevenson covers high school sports for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at 815-526-4513. He also can be reached by fax at 815-459-5640 or by e-mail at jstevenson@nwherald.com.