Knights win IHSA Academic Achievement Award; Three wrestlers earn all-MSC academic status.
By Mike Miazga
Correspondent
For the fifth year in a row, the IC Catholic Prep wrestling team won the Illinois High School Association Academic Achievement Award.
The award recognizes all IHSA teams that maintain a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher on an unweighted 4.0 scale throughout their respective season.
“We congratulate every athlete on our roster for their diligent work and contribution to this achievement,” IC Catholic Prep wrestling coach Kevin Sliva said.
Sliva noted IC Catholic Prep is one of only three high-school wrestling teams in the state to achieve the award in each of the past five seasons.
Of those three teams, IC Catholic Prep has more state qualifiers and state place-finishers than the other two teams combined in the 2016-2017 season.
He added the Knights were the only one of the three teams with an individual state champion (Joey Bianchini) both this past season and over that five-year stretch.
The Knights have won the academic award every year since the program was started at the school in the 2012-2013 season.
All but two wrestlers on the 2016-2017 team were multisport athletes. The other two wrestlers participate in different styles of wrestling year-round.
Eight of IC Catholic Prep’s wrestlers during the 2016-2017 school year were three-sport athletes.
In addition to the team award, three IC Catholic Prep wrestlers earned all-Metro Suburban Conference academic status this past season. Those wrestlers maintained a 3.5 grade-point average or above on a 4.0 scale throughout the season. MSC award-winners included freshman Corties Draper, sophomore Ryan Kenneally and junior Quinn Bigane.
“Striking the successful balance between academics and athletics always is the ultimate goal for any student-athlete,” Sliva said. “This award demonstrates the spectacular and unique environment this school embodies—faith, independent thinking, academic success, leadership, athletic participation and bountiful opportunities to develop into the best person a young student can become.
“As equal in sharing this award are all the teachers and faculty at IC Catholic Prep. Without each teacher and faculty member and their commitment to academic excellence in the classroom, this award would not be possible. We look forward to setting new goals and raising the bar for next season.”
2016-2017 IC Catholic Prep wrestling team members included: Bianchini (a junior last year), sophomore Joseph Bignane, Quinn Bignane (a junior last year), freshman Larry Chavez, Draper, freshman Evan Gibbons, senior Chuck Hipskind, senior Frank Jaeger, senior Chris Johnson, sophomore Michael Johnson, Kenneally, freshman Koby Reed, sophomore Kemon Reese, freshman Joseph Scott III, sophomore David Vargas and junior Victor Vargas.
