Cross Country teams off to a good start
By Steve G.

This year's cross-country team is off to a good start after their first meet of the year.

The girl's team won the meet, and both boys' teams finished third.

The girls team is made up of all of the grades. Colleen M., seventh grade, leads the girl's team.

The sixth and seventh grade boys team is led by Alex S., seventh grade, and the eighth grade boy's team is led by John B.

Practices for cross-country are after school every day until 4:00. The coaches are Ms. Krisik, Mr. Behrendt, and Mr. Larsen.

There are over fifty student runners this year. One of the hardest working runners, sixth grader Steve L., felt confident that he would do well, and finished fourth for our school.

Andrew K., seventh grade, who also ran well said, "I think we'll do well this year because we have a lot of talented runners."

Coach Larsen said that most of the runners have been practicing very hard. Seventh grader, Steve G., exclaimed, "yeah."

The meet was phenomenal. Everyone ran their hardest.

About half way through the meet, Ms. Krisik thought that the meet was going "awesomely."

Colleen M., after coming in first overall said, "I am tired but happy."

Ana N., seventh grade, screamed "I feel great!" Alex S. replied "I'm too sore to talk to you right now."

Everyone is exited for the next meet.

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Lake Park girls triumphant
By Megan K., Advertisement Editor

On Saturday, September 22 2001, the Lake Park Swim Team swam in a meet against the Oak Lawn Swim Team at the College of DuPage.

Although some of the swimmers on both teams could not be present due to scheduling conflicts and injuries, Lake Park beat Oak Lawn 70-52.

Alyssa Jakowchuk, ninth grade, said, "The meet went well even though there were so many injuries."

Another Lake Park swimmer said, "The team is improving tremendously. We are having a great season. Swimming is a lot of fun, and Lake Park is a great team to be a part of."

The meet was a girls' only meet, but not only girls were there. The boys on the team were helping time and run the scores around the pool. They also helped cheer.

A member of the Oak Lawn team said, "Lake Park is a good team not only in swimming but in sportsmanship."

One coach commented, "The meet was supposed to be a triangular meet but at the last minute Addison pulled out."

Another Peacock alumna, ninth grader, Amanda Streich said, "The meet went really well, and I think we all swam our hardest."

As for the coaches, they seemed very pleased with the outcome of the meet. And to all the teachers at Peacock, the freshman swimmers said "Hi"!

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A personal perspective: playing on the DuPage Bulls
By Nicole D.

They're fast, strong, and awesome! The seventh grade DuPage Bulls are a travel basketball team that Ashley D. and I play on. The league game on September 16, 2001 was very hard and competitive.

"We could have played a lot better. There were some big girls and a tough team. I hope we had fun, but it was pretty brutal," said Coach Batts, manager and head coach for the team. Coach Batts was a point guard while in college.

Yeah, it sure was. Those big girls ran right into us every time we tried to penetrate. That means trying to go up the middle of the court to the basket.

Execution, running the plays, is the point of the whole game. And of course one of the favorite things to not do is run!

The DuPage Bulls participated in a league at Trinity High School in River Forest throughout September and will continue to do so through most of October. There are fourteen teams in the league. The competition is hard.

"There are strong, tough, older, and more experienced girls in this league," explained Coach Batts. "The competition is tough. Throughout the season I think we are going to get very competitive," he said.

"This year I decided to play travel basketball instead of W.I.B.A because it would be a great learning experience," said forward Ashley Dawson.

"We practice well. We do a ton of endurance drills like ladders and suicides. We are going to go far," she said.

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Itasca Hawks soccer team is on a roll
By Samantha M.

Fun was the popular word last Friday during an interview with five girls from the U-12 Itasca Hawks traveling soccer team and their coach.

About a year and half ago this team was put together by Scott M., father of sixth grader Rachel M., and Paul N., father of sixth grader Julia N.. They decided to create this team because they thought it would be fun for the girls.

In the middle of the second season, the coaches hired a trainer to help the girls develop their soccer skills. Mr. Shawn Feeney, who has a daughter in fifth grade, also coaches the girls.

The farthest the team has ever traveled is to Sycamore, Illinois, about an hour away. This is the start of the Hawks third season and the team looks good.

In the first game, the Hawks played Elgin, and tied this former first place team.

At the start of the season, Coaches M. and N. hold tryouts for ten and eleven year old girls. The main thing they look for are girls who are tough and are always willing to give their best effort.

Another thing they look for are those soccer players who love the game.

Peacock students Julia Nelson, Kristen M., and Rachel M.are the midfielders and forwards for the team. They are responsible for scoring lots of goals.

Peacock sixth graders, Megan S. and Blaise M. are the Hawks very successful defense.

The Peacock students all agreed that travel soccer is a lot of fun. In their opinion, the toughest opponents are Sycamore, Hoffman Estates, and Schaumburg.

None of them really mind traveling so far.

They think the traveling team is a little different from the regular team. The teams the Hawks play are a little bit more competitive. The action in the games is a lot faster than the regular in-house team games.

The U-12 Itasca Hawks traveling team members interviewed said that they really loved playing soccer, and they loved playing together as a team.

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And the crowd goes wild!
By Kaitlyn L. and Shannon P.

The Lake Park High School Lancers football team thrilled the crowd by winning both of their homecoming games on September 21st. The Sophomore team won their game 41-6 vs. the East Aurora Tomcats, while the Varsity defeated the Tomcats 45-0.

In the Sophomore game, there were some pretty amazing plays. The Lancers intercepted a number of passes, had two punts returned for touchdowns. Their defense was solid, and thie offense was dynamic.

The crowd even enjoyed the dance routine performed during half-time of the Sophomore game by the JV Lancettes.

When the game was almost over, East Aurora had a great touchdown pass, but because of a penalty, the Tomcats did not score.

We interviewed Ryan Cibulka, the Lancers starting quarterback, who graduated from Peacock in 2000. He commented that he thought he played all right, and had some good and bad plays.

Ryan also commented that he thought that his team had played really well and that they could win the conference if they kept working hard.

He added, "My best play was probably my 20 yard pass for a touchdown in the 1st quarter."

We also interviewed Peacock alumnus Matt Petralia before the Varsity game. Matt plays defensive end. He felt that his team was really doing well and had a chance to win the Upstate Eight Conference. He said that they were "gonna crush" the Tomcats. Matt's confidence proved correct as the Lancers went on to shut out the Tomcats.

Before the Varsity game, there was a dedication to the innocent victims of the tragedy of September 11th, and the many firefighters and relief workers who had risked their lives to save others.

Everyone had American flags. The band played "America The Beautiful" and the national anthem. Everyone was singing and the crowd seemed to feel the moment deeply.

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Peacock Chargers charge on Medinah Middle School
By John G.

The weather for the first cross-country meet couldn't have been better. It was sunny and cool.

The Peacock girls did very well by taking first place for the team with a total of 40 points. Seventh grader Colleen Moran gave an impressive showing as she took first place for the girls' team.

The sixth and seventh grade boys gave a gallant effort by taking third place for the team. Team member Alex Schrautemyer, seventh grade, also gave an impressive showing by taking first place.

Sixth grader Bryan Heppner said, "Peacock did pretty good and that the other schools were tough to beat." He is enjoying cross-country so far and is looking forward to the next meet.

The eighth grade boys also took third place as a team. Our top runners were in seventh place, John Butzen, seventh grade, and in eighth place, Mark Kischner, seventh grade.

Before the meet, Coach Anderson had predicted success. Je was pleased with the outcome and hoped the teams would do even better next time.

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Time ran out for the Cubs
By Mike R., Sports Editor

With only four games left, the Cubs are finally out of the hunt for the wild card. The Cubs were much better than last season, but ultimately, just not good enough to beat their division rivals, Houston and St. Louis.

There were, however, several individual highlights for the season. Sammie Sosa became the first major league player to hit at least sixty homeruns in three successive seasons. He hit his sixty-first this afternoon, October 3.

Sosa also leads the league in RBI's (runs batted in) with 154.

This afternoon, Cubs ace, pitcher Jon Lieber also earned his twentieth victory of the season.

Manager Don Baylor has said that he thinks that the Cubs will build on this year's success next season. Several players agreed.

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NBA is on its way: preview and predictions
By Mari D.

Shack goes down the court with five seconds left. He shoots from the free throw line and he makes it. The Lakers win the championship. That was last year.

The Lakers won it all, and the Bulls lost it all.

The most exciting news for the new season is that Michael Jordan will be playing in the NBA. The sad part is that he won't be playing for the Chicago Bulls. Jordan led the Bulls to six championships. He will now play for the Washington Wizards.

I have a few predictions for the season. The Philadelphia 76ers will come in first for the Atlantic division, Milwaukee will come in first for the Central division, San Antonio will come first for the Midwest, and the Lakers will win the Pacific.

The Milwaukee Bucks and L.A. Lakers will play each other for the championship and the Lakers will win again.

This will be an exciting new year because of all of the new great players entering the league. There will be a lot of exciting highlights this season. But for Bulls fans, we can only dream.

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