Four OFHS Women Scholar-Athletes Sign, One At Division 1 School

OAK FOREST, IL — The OFHS Athletics Department started the signing season off with a bang as it hosted its first signing day, and the scholar-athletes signing to play collegiate sports were all women, playing four different powerhouse sports at the high school. One of these athletes even signed to play at a Division 1 school down South.

Senior Janae Kent officially signed to play basketball at Louisiana State University for the acclaimed women’s basketball coach, Kim Mulkey. While Mulkey is putting Kent through her paces as a basketball guard, she will be studying hard for a degree in psychology. Janae said that some of her proudest moments at OFHS were making "NHS and scoring [her] 1,000th point."

Kent is very grateful to her teachers and to her Coach, Jeff Kelly, for supporting her along her sports journey. She said, after she signed her official documents this afternoon, "I want to thank everyone for supporting me. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Go Tigers!"

Senior Hailey Wesner signed her official paperwork to become a St. Xavier University Cougar. She will be looking to be called an "Ace" at St. Xavier just like the Assistant Athletic Director, Mr. Jeff Kelly, calls her at OFHS, since she is so talented on the pitching mound. She is going to be exploring different majors as a freshman—she’s thinking about maybe going into teaching— while she gets her feet wet on the team under her college coach Erin Mollohan.

Wesner is proud of many of her sports-related accomplishments. She said, "They are All-Conference (twice), Regional Champs (twice), and I had an All-Area Honorable Mention, too!" Senior Jenna Cooper signed the official paperwork to become a Loras College Duhawk Wednesday at the signing ceremony. She is going to be playing soccer, hopefully in the outside mid and forward positions if possible for the Loras Coach Pucci and Coach Schultz. She is going to be hitting the library hard because her choice of major is Biology with her target career to be a Dermatology Physician’s Assistant.

At OFHS, Cooper has been proud of many things while she has been playing on the soccer team.
She said the biggest one has been "earning All-Sectional and All-Conference and back-to-back
regional championship titles."

Last, Senior Riley Ensing signed her official paperwork to wrestle for the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. Ensing is part of the inaugural OFHS women’s wrestling team and she is also one of the first to receive an offer to wrestle in college! Ensing wants to study Political Science and minor in Criminal Justice while she is wrestling for UWSP and Coach Jake Wozniak.

Ensing is proud of her 4th place freestyle finish at IHSA State competition and being a Fargo National Qualifier and attendee. She is really pleased with the choice of University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. She said, "I am happy to have the opportunity. I was always kinda thinking about it and I really didn’t have much time to wrestle in high school… to be able to have more time to learn and grow more as a wrestler and as a person in the sport is just a really great thing and I’m really happy I get the opportunity."