4 Individuals, 2 Teams Named To ETHS Hall Of Fame

Four athletes and two state championship teams have been named to the Evanston Township High School Hall of Fame, joining an elite group of competitors from both the boys and girls athletic programs.

A committee made up of school administrators, coaches and community members has selected Maia Cella (soccer), Parker English (track and field), Lucy Hogan (diving) and Zach Morton (baseball/basketball) for the Class of 2025 along with the 2005 and 2006 girls track and field teams that captured Illinois High School Association state championships.

The Class of 2025 will be recognized at the home football opener August 29th against Niles North, and will be honored at a luncheon at ETHS the next day.

MAIA CELLA, SOCCER

Maia Cella re-defined what it meant to be a central midfielder and team leader as a four-year starter for Evanston’s girls soccer team.

She made her teammates better, according to every coach she ever suited up for, and left her mark on the Lazier Field turf with a career total of 54 goals before graduating in 2017 and moving on to a stellar career as a four-year starter at the University of Wisconsin.

Cella is only the fifth female soccer player to earn induction to the ETHS Hall of Fame, a tribute to her overall play in a sport where the game’s best players can’t always be measured by statistics. She earned All-State recognition as a junior, when she scored 16 goals and added 14 assists, led the Wildkits to their first conference championship since 1999, and was named Most Valuable Player of the PepsiCo Showdown, the largest high school tournament in the country.

And while the high school soccer evolution that featured 6-footers of a physical nature on every team had started at that point, nobody played bigger in big games than the 5-foot-5 Cella.

Maurizio Grillo, Evanston’s head coach for the first three years of her high school career, knew he had something special in the blonde speedster right from the start,

“I couldn’t be more thrilled that Maia is being inducted. That recognition is so well-deserved and long overdue,” said Grillo, now the head coach at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. “I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the moment she first stepped onto the field for us. She had just finished middle school and we invited her to join a summer league match with the high school team. There she was, proudly wearing that orange uniform and playing against upperclassmen. She simply could not be stopped! She was electric, fearless and instantly impactful.

“Maia had composure beyond her years, could see plays unfolding before they happened, and dictated the rhythm of a match from the midfield with effortless intelligence. She wasn’t just fast, she was thoughtful, creative and incredibly team-oriented. The midfield is a hard place to make your mark in high school soccer, but she made it look effortless.”

The ability to see plays developing two, or three, or four, or five passes from the current moment was one feature that helped Cella excel.

“I am a big thinker and I tried to make it a mental game, too,” Cella said. “That was drilled into me by multiple coaches over the years, because they said if everyone on the field is in the moment, you can’t anticipate what’s going to happen down the line. Players who play at a high level are the ones who are able to see the whole field.

“I owe a huge debt to Coach Grillo because he trusted me a lot even as a freshman, and that really helped me. I was the only freshman on the (varsity) team and there were a lot of growing pains for me adjusting to how physical it was. He put a lot of faith in me. My friends were on the freshman team, but there was nothing more I wanted than to be on the varsity. Those first few practices and games I had to prove that I belonged. I was a nervous wreck, but the whole team helped me through it.”

Cella notched three goals in her first five varsity games and was a fixture in the starting lineup for the next four years.

“Her work ethic, and her willingness to give her all, helped us build the program back to where we were before,” noted Stacy Salgado, who succeed Grillo as head coach for Cella’s final season at Evanston. “She had such a great attitude, she was just a dominant player, and it was important to her to play high school soccer (instead of focusing on club competition like other elite players). I really respected her for that.

“Maia was an incredibly smart player. Her distribution and decision making were very advanced, and overall she was one of the strongest players I’ve seen --- ever. Her ability to transition quickly (from defense to offense) made her different from most midfielders, and when she did push forward she was so unselfish. She loved to be a playmaker and get everyone else involved.”

Cella also served as a team captain for the Wildkits as a junior and senior. She still holds the single game school record for assists in a game, with four in an 8-0 rout of Lincoln Park in the regional tournament championship game in 2017.

She then moved on to Madison, where she was following in the footsteps of a legendary Wisconsin midfielder --- three-time All-American Rose Lavelle --- who had just graduated.

Cella’s role for the Badgers was to be more defensive minded than she was in high school, and she adapted quickly, according to Wisconsin head coach Paula Wilkins.

“When we were recruiting her, we were looking for a holding center mid and we saw her beating people off the dribble again and again,” said Wilkins. “She was very gifted and very quick, and she had a very competitive mindset. She worked and covered ground in the midfield for us, and she just wore other people down.

“The combination of her athleticism and soccer IQ --- she’s really brilliant --- was so high that if we gave her any ideas about tactics, she was able to translate that into her play right away.”

One of the highlights for Cella during her collegiate career came back in Evanston. The Badgers defeated Northwestern in 2019 to clinch the Big Ten Conference regular season title. She also played on Badger teams that reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

Cella was named first team all-Big Ten in both 2019 and 2020 and was such a workhorse that she started every single game over a four-year stretch at Wisconsin.

“I played through a lot of things (minor injuries), but this is a game I love and I was going to play even if I wasn’t feeling at my best,” she said. “It was important to me not to miss any games.

“Winning the Big 10 is a moment that sticks out to me. That really felt like a great accomplishment and being able to lift that trophy at Northwester was so exhilarating. Playing in college also gave me a taste of postseason success that comes when the stakes are higher. When I was at Evanston we played in a very stacked area and no one really appreciates how tough the competition is in our sectional. We had very good teams that were capable of going very far, but it just didn’t work out for us.”

PARKER ENGLISH, TRACK AND FIELD

Parker English didn’t have a smooth transition from her freshman year to her sophomore year in the Evanston girls track and field program.

She didn’t like running alone in the open 400 meter race after spending her freshman year focused on running relays.

But English got used to running alone --- usually at the front of the pack in just about any race she tried.

Now, she’s definitely in the conversation --- along with fellow Hall of Famers Shalina Clarke, Tameeka McFarlane and Janis Foster --- if anyone wanted to create a mythical Mount Rushmore monument for the highly successful Wildkit girls program.

English enjoyed one of the best single seasons in program history as a senior and joins the Hall of Fame roster after claiming a total of 13 medals in her career at the Illinois High School Association state finals. Her 13 medals include gold medal efforts in the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes as a senior --- the only ETHS runner ever to win both of those races at the same state finals --- in 2014.

Only two other Wildkit girls, Demeca Hill with 15 and Traciann Henry with 14, have won more State medals than English.

“Without a doubt, Parker is in that small group of great athletes who have performed at the highest level for us,” said ETHS head coach Fenton Gunter. “She accepted all of the challenges we gave her, and went above and beyond.

“She came to us without a lot of fanfare out of junior high, but she put in a considerable amount of work, and she just kept getting better and better. She was just locked in, especially that senior year.”

How locked in was English as a senior? She won four events --- the 100, 200, 400 and long jump --- at the Central Suburban League South division meet that spring, becoming only the fourth girl in conference history to rule in those three races at the same meet.

The next week at the sectional, she did it again with four gold medal performances. She won the long jump with just one attempt, prevailing with a leap of 17 feet, 8.25 inches. And at the state finals, she shook off the disappointment of failing to advance out of the long jump prelims by taking top honors in the 200 (24.23 seconds) and 400 (53.88) while placing third in the 100 in 12.0.

English turned in a 53.80 clocking in the 400 prelims the day before the finals and that time ranked 10th in the entire country that season.

“I really didn’t like running the 400. The 200 was my favorite race,” English said. “I even ran the 300 hurdles a couple of times when I first started out because I didn’t like the 400. My freshman year (she ran on state championship relays in the 1600 and 800) I ran mostly relays and I have to get over a mental hurdle in the open 400. I was running by myself then and didn’t have my teammates around me.

“I even started carrying a mini-stick around with me (to mimic the feeling of carrying a relay baton) in the open 400 after that and I did that for two years. It was a challenge for me to run by myself.

“The people who supported me so much at Evanston are what I remember most. I didn’t come to Evanston until I was in middle school (she grew up in Oak Park) and I definitely didn’t know anything about the legacy I was walking into. Coach Fenny (Gunter) and Coach (Jesse) Sibert pushed you, but at the same time they didn’t give you too much to handle. They allowed you to mature through the sport and build your confidence. They did a really good job of nurturing you. I remember one time when Fenny said ‘don’t be afraid to be great,’ and that had a big impact on me.”

English’s greatness on and off the track was reflected by the fact that she won the Gatorade Player of the Year for the entire state of Illinois that spring. The award is more than just a promotion for the beverage company, which started choosing just one individual per sport per each state back in 1985. A committee picks the award winners based on athletic excellence, academic achievement and exemplary character, and English joins Clarke (2006) and Foster (1989) as the only ETHS athletes in ANY sport to earn that recognition.

English also had a successful four-year run at the University of Notre Dame, with most of her best races coming on relays for the Irish.

But the Gatorade trophy is still special to the Evanston product.

“There was a trophy and a banner to go with it, but I don’t know what happened to the banner,” said English, who still holds the ETHS school records in the 400 and long jump. “It’s a nice accomplishment and it’s cool to be in that same space with the other great athletes who have won it. I was really surprised when I won it because there are so many other girls competing in girls track.

“I think it’s the most prestigious award you can get as a high school athlete,” Gunter added. “That means you’re one of the 50 best girls in the country. We’ve had outstanding swimmers, outstanding wrestlers, outstanding athletes here at Evanston but we’ve never had another athlete win that award besides girls track.”

LUCY HOGAN, DIVING

Divers are taught from an early age that entering the water cleanly --- and NOT with a big splash --- is one way to boost your scores in the eyes of the judges.

Yet Lucy Hogan couldn’t help making a big splash during her entire career at Evanston.

Hogan became only the second diver in the history of the ETHS girls program to capture an Illinois High School Association state championship, ascending to the throne in 2018 after scoring state runner-up finishes as both a freshman and a sophomore.

Only fellow Hall of Famer Lona Foss, a three-time state champion in the 1970s, has surpassed Hogan’s efforts for the Wildkits. Hogan still owns the varsity, sophomore and freshman school records for 6 dives and 11 dives at ETHS and went on to compete at the University of Michigan at the collegiate level.

“The first time I saw her dive, I knew how good she was,” said ETHS diving coach Aaron Melnick. “Of all the athletes who have competed at Evanston, she deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Who else was ever as good in her events? The answer is --- no one.

“I saw a lot of improvement from her freshman year to her senior year. We knew she was capable of winning a state championship even as a sophomore. She left other people in the dust her senior year with her technical skills. She didn’t even have to do newer dives that year to win it.

“Lucy was so graceful. She knew how to put her body in the right position at the right time and her dives were so clean, even when she didn’t hit them. Put 10 kids starting at the same point as her when they started and Lucy was the one who figured it out first --- and locked it up. Even when she was slightly off, she knew how to finish so well.”

“It was partly all those reps (practice and meets) and partly just that genetically I was able to sneak into the water,” said a modest Hogan. “Competing in diving really taught me that nothing comes easy, and one of my favorite things about my athletic career is what I learned about mental toughness and resilience. If you set extremely high goals and fall short, that’s fine. Next time, you try to do better.

“I’m so excited and so happy to be going into the Hall of Fame. My time at ETHS was so pivotal, and it’s really unexpected.”

Hogan’s climb to the top wasn’t easy even for a natural talent. She had to deal with a serious back injury and a fierce rival in New Trier’s Jessie Creed during her four years at ETHS, and took a year off from high school diving as a junior for various reasons.

As a freshman, she made a lasting first impression on the state judges at the IHSA finals with a point total of 463.15 that trailed only state champion Sydney Dusel of Naperville Central, who ruled at 490.60.

Third in that same field was Creed at 459.60, stoking the competitive fires for the future between Hogan and a rival she grew up with vying for top honors as a young club competitor. That was the last time Creed lost to Hogan in high school.

In 2016, Creed captured the state crown by outscoring the ETHS standout 462.55 to 449.40 at the finals, and a frustrated Hogan made the decision to skip her junior year of high school events to focus on improving her resume for college recruiting.

She came back in 2018 --- and Creed opted to attend a prep school in Florida despite the fact that by then the New Trier diver was a two-time defending state champ in Illinois. So the diving community was denied a potential matchup between two of the best in state history in the fall of 2018.

“I do know that Jessie didn’t ever want to lose to Lucy again after that freshman year,” Melnick recalled. “And I think when Jessie left the state of Illinois, Lucy saw that she COULD win State. She really wanted a state championship under her belt.

“Do I think she was capable of beating Jessie? Absolutely. She just had to double down to fine-tuning all of her dives to be able to do that. It would have been a close fight.”

Hogan spent her junior year working privately to try to make an impression on the college coaches, eventually choosing Michigan after also making recruiting trips to Harvard, Texas and Northwestern.

She worked to develop as a platform (10 meter) diver, an event not offered in high school competition, while also honing her other skills.

“When I decided to take that year off, it was that I wanted to be able to set myself apart from the other divers who were being recruited,” Hogan said. “I felt that was my best path forward, to get some good (club) scores and find a coach and a team I could connect with for college.

“Jessie and I had a friendly rivalry since we were about 10 years old. She pushed me to be better and I pushed her, and I’m so appreciative of that, even though I didn’t really love having a rival! I don’t regret taking that year off. By my senior year I had taken all the recruiting trips and I was a little more settled. I was able to enjoy the moment, and not be as worried about the future.

“If Jessie had stayed here, I feel like it would have been a toss-up (at the IHSA finals). That would have been fun to watch. I set winning the state championship as a goal and, after trying and trying again and again, I was able to achieve it.”

As a senior, Hogan piled up 450.90 points at State and was the clear-cut victor over another Jessie, Jessie Landis of Vernon Hills, who placed second at 418.10. Her final three dives on Saturday included an award of 9.0 from one judge on her inward dive.

“I felt a lot of pressure coming into this weekend and my first 5 dives (in Friday’s prelims) were little shaky,” she was quoted at the time. “I felt like all these people were counting on me here, and I couldn’t let them down.

“My freshman year (at State), I didn’t know what high school diving was all about. My sophomore year I dove my heart out and it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. This year I was way more determined because of that. I knew this was my year to get it.”

At Michigan, Hogan excelled on the board --- and in the classroom, too. As a freshman, she earned the UM Athletic Achievement Award and was a two-time All-American on 3-meter and platform. She received all-Big Ten academic honors as a sophomore, with a best effort of 7th on the 1-meter board at the conference meet, and as a junior qualified for the NCAA Championships on the 10-meter board, where she placed 24th overall.

As a senior, Hogan scored top 10 finishes on all three boards, including a best of 6th on 1 meter, at the Big Ten Championships.

ZACH MORTON, BASEBALL/BASKETBALL

Zach Morton never felt pressured to specialize in one sport as he progressed from a freshman to a senior in Evanston’s athletic program.

And because of that, he’s a Hall of Famer who had fun getting there.

The only ETHS athlete to be named Central Suburban League South division “Player of the Year” in two sports --- basketball and baseball --- in the SAME school year, Morton used his diverse skill set to excel on the diamond and on the court.

Morton was a two-time all-Big Ten Conference player in baseball at Northwestern University and played three seasons of minor league baseball before joining the analytics department in baseball operations for the Cleveland Guardians.

“I see it every day now, there’s a ton of specialization now,” said Morton, who graduated from ETHS in 2008. “But honestly, I just had a blast playing both sports. In the summer I was lucky because my parents would take me to an AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) basketball game, and the next day I’d be off to play a baseball game. They got me into competitive leagues with good coaches and good friends I enjoyed playing with.

“Whether I was naïve about it or not, I don’t know. But my coaches (Ed Toledo and Frank Consiglio in baseball, Bobby Locke in basketball) were awesome. I never felt any pressure from them. I’d feel bad if I missed workouts for one sport or the other, and I’d try to make it up if I could, but I never remember having to pick one. The competition to get to the next level in any sport is so high that it’s hard to fight that draw to specialize.”

Morton played varsity basketball for three years and capped his career on the court by leading the Wildkits to a third place finish at the Illinois High School Association state tournament. The Kits won 30 games that season and Morton led a well-balanced squad with 5.1 assists per game and ranked second on the team in scoring at 9.5 points per game.

In the spring, he posted a 9-1 won-loss record as a pitcher with an earned run average of 1.02. He also played the infield and batted .402 with 25 runs batted in.

“Zach had a natural feel for both sports, although I thought basketball was more like a hobby for him,” said Locke. “He was so fricking talented right from an early age. He was The Guy when he was at Evanston, but he was such a great kid and he was so humble. He played in a conference that was one of the tops in the state in both sports and was the Player of the Year in both. That’s a special human being.”

Morton had already committed to Northwestern the summer before his senior year and knew his future would be in baseball. But Evanston’s basketball team was coming off an appearance in the Sweet Sixteen his junior year and the temptation for Locke that summer was understandably to see as much of Morton on the basketball court as possible.

Instead, he sat down with the 6-foot-2 guard and told him to make it out to team workouts and games whenever he could --- his choice.

“I said there are just a couple of key shootouts I’d like you to play in, one at Riverside-Brookfield --- that was a huge tournament --- and the other one at Morton because I knew a lot of the city schools would be there,” Locke recalled. ”I knew he was such a team guy that he’d try to make it to both of them, and he did.”

Morton teamed with Steve Rudnicki --- Locke later called them “the best backcourt in the state of Illinois” --- to help the Kits win that prestigious summer tournament at R-B for the only time in school history.

“I think that worked out well for Zach,” Locke said. “I’ve coached a lot of Division I guys who could really play, but I’ll take Zach first. He’s smart, he could shoot it and there was never a situation where he was rattled on the court. When we were dead in the water as a team, Zach would find a way to get you a hoop. He was the one constant for us. He had a feeling for the rhythm of the game and he could see plays (unfolding) in advance.”

Evanston fell short that year in pursuit of a state championship when Zion-Benton converted a halfcourt shot at the buzzer in the state semifinals. Morton led the Kits in scoring in nine games during the regular season and played some of his best basketball in the state playoffs, including a 17-point outing in an overtime win against Loyola Academy in the sectional opener and 14 points in the super-sectional versus Mount Carmel.

“That was a super special, tight knit group of guys,” said Morton regarding his cage teammates. “We were confident as a unit and our expectations rose as the season went on. I’m still sad about that Zion-Benton game because it was like a stab in the heart to me. But the bus rides, hanging out with the guys, playing New Trier at Northwestern --- the journey was so much fun.”

No one who faced the right-hander during the baseball season had much fun. He pitched a two-hit shutout against rival New Trier --- the Trevians were unbeaten at that stage of the season --- and still ranks in the top 10 all-time in numerous pitching categories at ETHS.

“I think about Zach being Player of the Year in two sports in a loaded conference like that, and you ask yourself how could he be that good in two sports in a six month period?” asked Consiglio, who was in his first year as the Evanston head coach. “That’s just an unbelievable feat.

“I’ll never forget when he came to practice a few weeks after basketball had ended. I was a young coach at the time so I thought I’d jump into the batting cage and see what he had. He threw me a slider --- and it buckled me. Then he threw me a fastball and hit me in the arm. That’s the last time I ever got in the cage against someone that good. My shoulder still hurts!

“Zach succeeded in both sports because he was very efficient when it came to his work ethic. He always had a plan, and he always wanted to compete. He’s on the short list of the greatest ever here in the baseball program. He could control a game on the mound, he had speed and he had great skills as a hitter. He was a coach’s dream who understood the game at a high level.”

Northwestern recruited the right-hander as primarily a pitching prospect and he still ranks 11th all-time in that program for innings pitched despite missing one full season --- because he tore his ACL playing basketball (naturally) after earning second team all-conference honors and leading the Big Ten in batting average with a sizzling .427 mark as a second baseman.

And after missing an entire season with the injury, Morton came back and again was named all-Big Ten as a second sacker in 2013. That year he drove in a team leading 31 runs and also ranked 11th on the mound in the conference with an earned run average of 2.86.

He was drafted in the 32nd round by the Houston Astros and played on championship teams for three of that system’s minor league squads before hanging up his spikes. His teammates in the minors included future MLB stars Carlos Correa and Lance McCullers.

“I just wasn’t good enough,” Morton admitted. “But I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.

“Making it into Hall of Fame (at ETHS) is not something I ever thought was possible. Never in a million years did I think people would think about me this way, and I’m super grateful.”

2005 GIRLS TRACK AND FIELD

As it turned out for Evanston’s girls track team in the spring of 2005, maintaining the momentum of back-to-back Illinois High School Association state championships wasn’t as difficult as head coach Fenton Gunter thought it might be.

He simply replaced one Hall of Fame runner with another and the Wildkits continued their historic run.

With Demeca Hill, now a junior, stepping up to succeed Traciann Henry in an expanded role on the squad, the Kits outscored Morgan Park 84-71 at the state finals and again earned the right to wear the state crown.

Behind state title runs from junior Shalina Clarke in the 100-meter (13.93 seconds) and 300-meter hurdles (40.61) and a 2-3 finish by Clarke and Hill in both the open 100 and open 200 at Charleston, the Wildkits piled up points in nine different events in a dominant display on the blue oval track at Eastern Illinois University.

Hill’s previous contributions had come mostly in relays. She continued that success, eventually contributing to an astonishing seven state relay championship efforts in her career, and in 2005 teamed with Lauryn Nwankpa, Leah Schenkier and Brittany Tolar for a runnerup finish in the 800 relay at State.

In the 400 relay, the unit of Hill, Nwankpa, Morgan Pointer and Jonkea Stewart-Butler placed fifth. Nwankpa, Pointer, Schenkier and Tolar added a seventh place finish in the 1600 relay.

“The story of Year 3 (on their way to a 4-peat) was the emergence of Demeca (Dae Dae) Hill,” Gunter recalled. “That’s what put us over the hump after we lost someone like Traciann, who was a great runner and a workhorse for us for four years. Don’t forget that Traciann was in the (state) finals all four years in the 100 and 200 and we knew she’d be hard to replace.

“We never talked about repeating (as state champions) with the girls. At the end of the state meet we’d just say, we did it, that’s two in a row, or three in a row. We had a pretty good group of girls that year and we didn’t want to put any more pressure on them.

“Our two jumpers (Arielle McAlpin and Stewart-Butler) put up some big points for us before we even got on the track Saturday. That got us off to a great start, and we never looked back.”

McAlpin finished second in the long jump, with a best effort of 18 feet, 5 inches, and teammate Stewart-Butler took fourth at 18-2.75. McAlpin also contributed a third in the triple jump at 38-3.5.

“That was a lot of points in the jumps,” Gunter pointed out. “We didn’t win a lot of events that year, but our role players really stood up and we scored a lot of points. We actually had four good jumpers that year because Shalina and Demeca were pretty good, too. But they had opportunities in other events, and that’s what made us such a good team.”

Both Pointer and Stewart-Butler were basketball players at ETHS and that usually led to a slow start for both runners once they made the transition over to track.

“Morgan was a little quicker to adapt that way. Jonkea didn’t run (relays) much her freshman year. But she was phenomenal for us on relays once she got it right, and she became a real student of the long jump.”

2006 GIRLS TRACK AND FIELD

The chance to make athletic history at Evanston wasn’t lost on head coach Fenton Gunter and his girls track and field coaching staff, even though Gunter’s policy covering three decades in the program wasn’t to focus on where the Kits finished in the team standings at the Illinois High School Association state finals.

Gunter couldn’t help himself in 2006, partly because of his admiration for the ETHS boys swim program under Dobbie Burton that had claimed four state crowns in a row in 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956.

“We did chit chat a little about it that year,” the veteran head coach confessed. “Boom, boom, boom, they won four in a row in swimming and we told them that would really be something if WE could do that. They were really hungry --- and they did it.”

Evanston blew away the competition on the track, outscoring runneup Palatine 91-46 at State, behind victories from Hall of Famer Shalina Clarke in the 100-meter dash, 200 dash, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. The Wildkits also ruled the 400 and 800 relays and became only the third program in state history to win the big school team championship four years in a row.

East St. Louis Lincoln dominated with nine straight titles between 1982 and 1990, while Morgan Park also won four in a row in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Ironically, teams coached by Gunter at ETHS broke both of those streaks.

No other Evanston teams in any sport have come close to bringing home four straight championship trophies.

It was a culmination of hard work combined with unprecedented talent in the program during that four-year stretch.

“They knew what they were capable of and we (as coaches) didn’t have to do too much that year,” Gunter laughed. “The seniors on that team had four years in the trenches and they were hungry. We covered every event, and they had the mindset that they were going to close out their senior year strong.

“We did always tell our kids that just because you look good on paper, that doesn’t mean it will be good when you run. But in that stretch (2003-06) we had run at meets in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska and Florida and I think they were really prepared well. It was a great finish for us at State. There was no tension, no nerves, no hiccups. We ran great.

“The expectations everyone held for us that year were tremendous, but our girls handled themselves with class just like we wanted them to. Seeing them grow and develop like they did over that period of time was really something and our staff did a really good job with them. They all made the commitment and they all got the benefits at the end.”

At the state finals, Evanston claimed first in the 400 relay behind Demeca Hill, Adrienne Slaughter, Jonkea Stewart-Butler and Brittany Tolar in 47.69. That same group also took top honors in the 800 relay, posting a winning time of 1:38.67.

Hill finished second in both the 100 and 200 to teammate Clarke, who capped a brilliant career that included eight individual state championships. Evanston’s other points came from the 1600 relay foursome of Morgan Pointer, Leah Schenkier, Slaughter and Stewart-Butler, who took second in 3:53.01, and third place finisher Stewart-Butler in the long jump (18 feet, 0.75 inches).

“We had to fight against some really quality teams that year and we showed some real character,” Gunter added. “We showed people we wouldn’t back down. It was so fulfilling for me, to see how far the program had come since the 1970s.

“It was the final feather in our cap, the accumulation of how much so many people had put in the program from the beginning. It was so fulfilling to know that after we won, how many people would have a smile on their face --- or drop a tear --- because of what we did.”