Illinois Wesleyan junior Nathan Boldt, a graduate of Barrington High School, operates in the post during a game earlier this month against Carroll University.
Courtesy of Illinois Wesleyan University Sports Communications

Familiar faces at Illinois Wesleyan University helped the Titans win the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin women’s and men’s basketball tournaments.

Beating Carthage 79-60, the men’s team won the tournament for the first time since it was held in 2003. Nathan Boldt (Barrington High School), a 6-foot-10 junior forward, came off the bench to grab a season-high 8 rebounds to go with 5 points. Starting senior guard Hakim Williams (Round Lake) and senior forward Marko Anderson (Maine South) were top contributors, and readers may also recall key Titans guards Josh Fridman out of Glenbrook North and Karlo Colak of New Trier.

Junior swingman Griffin Daun (Wauconda) and Carthage saw their season end Friday in an NCAA Division III tournament loss to St. Norbert College, 92-89.

Ranked ninth nationally by D3hoops.com, Illinois Wesleyan (24-5) on Saturday advanced into the tournament’s Sweet Sixteen with a 75-73 win over St. John’s University (Minn.) at the University of Chicago’s Ratner Athletic Center. Colak scored on a putback with 0.3 seconds left. The Titans will visit No. 5 Wisconsin-LaCrosse on Friday.

The Illinois Wesleyan women beat Carroll University (Wis.) 95-86 to win their 11th CCIW tournament title. Star senior guard Lauren Huber’s (Glenbard East) season-high 28 points and game-high 11 rebounds led the effort but she got plenty of help from juniors Sawyer White (Montini) with 17 points and 3 steals and Ava Bardic (Stevenson) with 13 points. Senior Kate Palmer (Geneva) scored 8, and when Carroll pressured early, junior Sara Balli (Lake Park) hit a big 3.

Ranked fourth nationally, Illinois Wesleyan’s women (28-1) advanced to the women’s Division III Sweet Sixteen. On Saturday the Titans beat Trine University (Ind.) 82-50 behind Bardic’s five 3-pointers and 26 points. Wesleyan will host Wisconsin-Oshkosh on Friday at the Shirk Center.

Take the Hintz

A former East Suburban Catholic Conference baseball pitcher of the year, University of Arizona junior Casey Hintz (St. Viator) earned a win in dramatic fashion against then-No. 1 Texas A&M on Feb. 28 in Houston. Hintz pitched 5 innings of relief and got the win when Arizona scored twice in the top of the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth with two outs, he allowed the tying runner to reach base before getting a swinging strikeout to end the game. Entering Friday, Hintz had a 2-0 record with a 2.13 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 12⅔ innings pitched.

Back to the Garden

The Great Lakes Valley Conference named Lewis University senior Delaney Garden (Jacobs) its softball pitcher of the week for a second straight week and for the fourth time overall. On the season the left-hander is 7-4 with a 1.59 ERA, 3 shutouts, and in 70⅓ innings has allowed 46 hits while striking out 90 batters. She was also second on the Flyers with a .434 batting average and led the team in runs and total bases while going 11 of 11 in stolen base attempts.

MVFC MVPs

To commemorate its 40th season, capped by North Dakota State’s Football College Subdivision title early in 2025, Missouri Valley Football Conference fans voted for the league’s 40th Anniversary Team.

The results included the following players from Daily Herald turf: quarterbacks, South Dakota State’s Mark Gronowski (Neuqua Valley) and Western Illinois’ Russ Michna (Conant); Southern Illinois running back Tom Koutsos (Marmion), and Western Illinois receiver Don Beebe (Kaneland); tight ends, North Dakota State’s Tom Babicz (Barrington) and Illinois State’s James O’Shaughnessy (Naperville North); and North Dakota State punter Ben LeCompte (Barrington).

Smartie

Speaking of the Missouri Valley, Drake guard Mitch Mascari (Geneva), a graduate student featured previously for his 3-point shooting, made the MVC Scholar-Athlete first team and third-team all-conference. He had a 3.98 grade-point average in finance as an undergrad and now owns a 3.80 GPA in graduate accounting.