By Jack Lydon
I think I am finding my voice when it comes to blog posts. The blog on my website usually just contains galleries of photos from games and events I cover with some explanation. I also post my news articles that appear in the Inside—Booster.
Starting tomorrow, I am going to post news related items from the IHSA boys basketball playoffs that the U. of I. State Farm Center in Champaign in more of a first person blog format. I hope to do it in as close to real time as I can for games that I am not photographing. Tomorrow are the 1A, 2A and 3A semi-finals.
We have six Chicago area teams in playing tomorrow: Chicago Hope, Christ the King, Dyett, Brother Rice, DePaul Prep and St. Patrick. So I will post what I can as I watch the games. But I will probably be photographing the 3A games with just the usually Twitter/X score updates.
Here is some stuff DePaul Prep’s opponent, Glenwood. The Rams take on Glenwood in tomorrow’s 3A sem-final starting at 8:15 p.m.
The Glenwood Titan (24-9), with an enrollment listed by the IHSA as 1,466, are from the Central State Eight conference where they finished fourth behind MacArthur (3A in Decatur), Springfield (3A) and Lanphier (3A from Springfield). All of those schools were in the same sectional that the #3 seed Glenwood won.
The Glenwood starters are senior guard Cameron Appenzeller, senior guard Gavin Simmons, junior forward Jack Kurman, senior forward Mason Neumann and senior forward Jonathon Helm.
Glenwood’s leader scorer is Appenzeller followed closely by Helm. Based upon the games played, it looks like their starters get almost all of the playing time with the only bench player getting significant playing time being junior guard Brody Green.
Knowledgeable high school basketball commentator Big Tim Shabazz suggests in his blog that Glenwood’s size could give DePaul Prep some trouble. Check that out at Big Tim’s blog. Click here to read it.
Michael O’Brien reported this afternoon in the “No Shot Clock” podcast that the Glenwood’s Cameron Appenzeller is a 6’5” lefty pitcher who might be a first-round draft pick in the Major League Baseball draft. So that’s something. Must be quite an athlete.
Appenzeller does not show up in the PrepHoops.com rankings of Class 2025 basketball players. I am guessing that is because he probably plays baseball and not club basketball in the off-season, so he is not on that radar.