Roll call taken for area collegians
It’s time for a roll call for the many area athletes playing collegiately this fall. Today’s hometown update will take a look at football and volleyball:
Football
• Former Bureau Valley teammates Preston Jones and Brad Monier are suiting up for their senior season of Augustana football. Jones starts at outside linebacker, Monier at free safety. The Vikings are 2-0 after a week off heading into Saturday’s game at Wisconsin-Platteville.
• Another key member of the 2005 Bureau Valley state runners-up, Josh Coyle, is a redshirt junior lineman for Quincy University.
• Garrett Barnas, who led Bureau Valley to the state title in 2006, is back at the trigger of Harper College’s explosive offense. The soph QB, who has received a scholarship offer from Syracuse University, threw for two TDs in the Hawks’ 44-21 win over North Central’s JV on Sept. 13.
• 2008 Bureau Valley grad Patrick Smith is a freshman wide receiver at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
• St. Bede’s Ryan Milus (soph., TE) and Hall grad Jordan Petersen (fr., WR) are suiting up for Aurora University. Milus had two catches for 13 yards and Peterson one catch for nine yards in a 35-13 win over Brent Becker’s (Princeton) Foresters of Lake Forrest.
• Freshman Danny Joyce and sophomore Nick Norton, former Hall Red Devil teammates, have been reunited at Rockford College.
Volleyball
• Former Hall teammates Kelsey Polte, a junior setter, and Kara Decker, a junior hitter, are teaming up again for the Lady Saints at St. Francis University in Joliet. The Saints improved to 10-6 and 3-0 in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference with last week’s win over Robert Morris.
Five other former Lady Devils are still in the game: Jenna Luck, a sophomore hitter at Lincoln College; Beth Wenzel, a junior at Ashford University; Kayla Bowen, a sophomore at Aurora University; and Meredith Rounds and Kately Hanson, a freshman at Illinois Valley Community College.
Luck made a homecoming when Lincoln played in the IVCC Tournament on Saturday.
• Bureau Valley has been a college pipeline of talent, with Carly Payan topping the list playing Division I volleyball for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and dodging hurricanes along the way. The former BCR co-Player of the Year has started all six matches for the Ragin Cajuns (2-4), leading the team with 42 kills. She is a senior elementary ed major.
BV’s Breelyn McMa-hon is a junior teammate of Wenzel’s at Ashford. Former BV standout Angie Bickett did not return for her sophomore season at St. Ambrose, opting to pursue her nursing career in Peoria.
• Princeton’s Angela Baumgartner is a junior member of the Augustana volleyball team. At 1.71, she is one of six Augie players averaging at least 1.59 kills per set. The Lady Vikings fell to 9-2 after dropping last week’s CCIW opener to North Central.
• St. Bede grad Sarah Foote is a senior for North Park University volleyball.
• LaMoille’s Laura Lovgren is a freshman member of the IVCC volleyball team.
If you have college news, e-mail it to khieronymus@ bcrnews.com