York's Stark turning adversity into inspiration

Matty Stark's story is at once inspiring and heartbreaking.

The York senior basketball player chooses inspiration.

"I am much stronger than I ever thought I would be and, especially later in life, no matter what I face, since I've gotten four ACL (tears) there's really nothing that I can't do," she said.

Yes, four tears of the anterior cruciate ligament, two on each knee for the Dukes shooting guard and team captain. The last occurred Feb. 4 against Oak Park in Elmhurst, her second game back following a triumphant senior night return Feb. 2.

It was the second time in nine months Stark tore the right ACL. This time in surgery on Feb. 7 part of her right iliotibial band was wrapped around her right lateral collateral ligament to prevent excessive rotation of the joint.

"It kind of looks like a dog chewed up my knee. The other one's pretty clean," said Matty, given name Madison.

"My goal from the beginning of the season was to shoot in the (state) 3-point contest, actually," said Stark, all-West Suburban Silver as a junior and a sectional advancer in the Illinois High School Association's 2018 "Three-Point Showdown."

"The surgeon said I was good, I was strong, one of the best (recoveries) he'd seen, actually. He told me I was ready."

Stark always was ready and willing, if often unable.

Her first knee injury came playing club soccer the summer before eighth grade, a left back tearing her left ACL. Told to make a decision between soccer and basketball, Stark chose basketball.

"It stinks. I love them both," she said.

Basketball had been deeply embedded. For a decade her father, Tim, was an assistant and head girls coach at Leyden, where he remains as a physical education teacher; Matty's mother, Amy, does the same job at Willowbrook.

Stark's second ACL tear, also on the left knee, came as an incoming freshman in her third summer league game with York.

At the time Matty voiced concern to her mother about continuing, but her goal to play in college overshadowed the fear. Stark played her sophomore and junior seasons unimpeded.

"Her story is just so powerful because it's exactly what sports should be teaching players, the ability to persevere and fight and get back up. When you have a goal or a vision or a dream don't let adversity stop you," said Greg Ktistou, the former Downers Grove South star who also can speak on that topic.

After Stark's first knee injury she sought training at Breakaway Basketball, the company Ktistou (pronounced "thee-stew") founded. Stark's younger brother, Peyton, now a freshman at York, went there. Matty attended to get back into game shape.

"She was just a little bulldog from the get-go," Ktistou said.

Stark found an ally. Cut from his seventh-grade team, Ktistou worked to average 23 points as a high school senior. After playing at Eastern Illinois and Carthage College he enjoyed a decorated professional career in Greece and Germany.

That was cut short in March 2014 at age 34 when Ktistou was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart-thickening disorder that felled Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers and the Boston Celtics' Reggie Lewis. Suddenly, a career shift was necessary.

"Basketball prepared me for that," he said.

Basketball, and her struggle, likewise prepared Stark, who won't be able to return to any athletics for about 16 months. By then she'll be starting her sophomore year at Marquette University, where she intends to pursue a goal of becoming a nurse.

"Before, I always wanted to play basketball, but when I got hurt I kind of got a new passion, which Greg helped me find, and that was helping people," Stark said.

She'll go to college as the first recipient of Breakaway Basketball's Matty Stark Scholarship, open to a senior who overcame adversity to pursue their passion. Initially a $3,000 scholarship, when Ktistou announced it would be in Stark's name people kept giving. It now totals $11,000.

While telling her story Stark said things happen for a reason. Four ACL tears in five school years is unreasonable, yet she has found one.

"I think it was for me to get this story out and let people know that no matter what happens you can get through it," Stark said without pity or remorse. "I know people say that all the time, but you don't actually know how strong you are until you look at it through your eyes and get through it."

Johanik breaks drought

Each of the last two years Wheaton Academy's Derek Johanik had lost in the waning seconds of the "blood rounds" of sectional wrestling, denied a downstate berth.

On Feb. 9 at the Class 1A Byron sectional the senior 285-pounder faced that possibility yet again. After a 7-3 quarterfinal loss in overtime to Byron's massive, state-ranked Tyler Elsbury, Johanik was trailing Dakota's Erik Quinnett. In the final seconds Johanik (30-4) wrapped Quinnett and took him down for a 3-2 decision.

Going on to finish fourth at Byron at 285, by advancing to this weekend's individual state finals in Champaign the future Wheaton College football player is Wheaton Academy's first wrestling state qualifier since the school disbanded the program in 1995-96. It was reinstated in 2010-11.

More dramatic, Johanik is the Warriors' first qualifier in 40 years, since Tom Pienkowski won the 1979 Class A heavyweight title.

Strength in numbers

Glenbard East's Molly Galvin will tell you, bowling is better with friends.

In 2018 she qualified for the girls state finals as a sophomore, the only one from her team to do so. Assigned to a lane with the four other top individuals out of her sectional, it was "harder to connect with people because they're all from different schools," she said.

This year the Glenbard co-op qualified out of the Hinsdale South sectional along with Willowbrook, Downers Grove South and York. The finals will be competed, as usual, at Cherry Bowl in Rockford on Friday and Saturday.

At Westmont's Suburbanite Bowl, Galvin's score of 1354 was the fourth highest at any of the six sectionals. Downers South senior Emily Spicuzza and Willowbrook junior Makaylah Jones topped their respective regionals at 1249 and 1236, respectively.

Willowbrook senior Holly Hesper is DuPage County's top returning state bowler, 11th last year with a 207.2 average. Hesper moved up 48 positions after Day 1.

Galvin was slightly terrified walking into Cherry Bowl last year.

"It seemed that the loudest team from each sectional was now all in that one place," she said.

There is strength in numbers.

"I'm really excited to try and do better than last year because I didn't do so well," she said. "And I think the whole team environment is going to help a lot."

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

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