Hampshire to honor Goebbert on Friday
Hampshire High School will honor one of its greatest athletes at halftime of Friday's boys basketball game against Grayslake North.
Jacob Goebbert, a 2006 graduate, made his Major League Baseball debut with the San Diego Padres against the Los Angeles Dodgers on June 20, 2014. A 13th-round draft choice of the Houston Astros out of Northwestern in 2009, Goebbert finished the season with 22 hits in 101 major league at-bats, including a home run, 3 triples and 10 RBI.
Goebbert was designated for assignment by the Padres on Wednesday. According to MLB rules, he must be reinstated to the 40-man roster in 10 days if he is not traded, waived or outrighted back to the minor leagues.
Hampshire will honor Goebbert with a framed Padres jersey to commemorate his MLB debut. The jersey will be displayed above the main entrance to Hampshire's competition gymnasium.
Named the 2005-06 Daily Herald Male Athlete of the Year/Fox Valley, the Pingree Grove resident is the last athlete to be named to all-area teams in football (quarterback), basketball (point guard) and baseball (outfielder/pitcher) in the same school year.
Goebbert remains the only Hampshire athlete to be named honorary captain of the Daily Herald All-Area Football Team/Fox Valley.
Beyond the numbers: Tuesday's record-setting performance by Dundee-Crown guard Kiwaun "Kiwi" Seals was even better than his whopping 42-point total indicated.
Seals not only broke the previous school single-game record of 37 points - capped by his game-winning free throws with 2.2 seconds remaining - he did the little things on the defensive end D-C coach Lance Huber has been asking of him.
Sandwiched between a pair of successful third-quarter drives to the basket, Seals cut off a baseline drive by a Cary-Grove player and drew the charge. In the fourth quarter he slapped the ball out of the hands of a Cary-Grove rebounder and fed teammate Jameson Cowan for a layup and a 4-point lead.
"I thought those were two of his biggest plays of the night," Huber said. "Then he got the rebound and took off and made the free throws. Everybody's going to talk about his points, but we've really been working hard on him to do it on both ends of the floor. He made some selfless plays and I'm really proud of him for that."
Seals set D-C's new single-game scoring record without benefit of a 3-pointer, missing the only one he took. Overall, he made 16 of 28 field goals and drained 10 of 11 free throws.
"The rest of the team gave me the ball in the high post," Seals said. "That's where coach likes me to work at. He doesn't like me shooting outside too much. A lot of the shots went down early and they kept giving it to me."
The Chargers led 3-2 on the strength of Jack Orndahl's 3-pointer when Seals went on an epic tear. He scored Dundee-Crown's next 36 points, breaking the previous D-C record of 17 straight points scored by Ryan Ewert.
It wasn't until Seals stole the ball and fed Cowan for a layup with 5:15 left that a third Charger dented the score book.
Closing in: Cary-Grove senior Jason Gregoire scored 21 points in a 50-48 loss to Dundee-Crown on Tuesday, which nudged him closer to the 1,000-point milestone.
A third-year varsity player who scored 264 points as a sophomore and 499 as a junior, Gregoire has netted 152 points in 10 games this season for a career total of 915. If he continues to score at his current 15.2 points-per-game clip, he will join the 1,000-point club in a Jan. 31 game at Huntley.
Gregoire would become only the second player in Cary-Grove history and the first in 36 years to reach the milestone, according to Trojans coach Ralph Schuetzle. The 6-foot-4 guard would join 1978 graduate Steve Sherwood, who went on to play four seasons at Evansville.
Sherwood's three-year varsity scoring total is estimated to be between 1,250 and 1,300 points, but the school's records are incomplete, Schuetzle said.
Bright side: Tuesday's 64-35 loss to Rockford Boylan did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of first-year Huntley coach Will Benson, who said the Red Raiders are nevertheless showing signs of improvement two months in advance of the Class 4A regional the program will host.
Huntley (3-9, 0-1 FVC Valley) struggles to match up with tall teams like Boylan, Geneva and Larkin, as shown in one-sided losses to those teams this season.
However, the Red Raiders gained some confidence with their 2-3 showing at the Hinkle Holiday Classic at Jacobs. That record included a 4-point loss to Rockford Jefferson (10-4), which is one of the teams assigned to the Huntley regional along with Crystal Lake South (10-4), Crystal Lake Central (5-9), Prairie Ridge (5-9) and Belvidere North (5-9).
"There's still so much time left in this season, but we think that regional is wide open," Benson said. "Our No. 1 goal is to see if we can keep improving and compete for a regional."