VOL. II, NO. 15
June 6, 1961
Westerner Chooses Five Top Maine West Athletes
Swimmer Ken Fadden has been elected the Most Valuable tanker for Maine swimming teams for the past three years in succession. As a sophomore at Maine East, Ken was voted the Most Valuable frosh-soph merman, and at Maine West in his junior and senior years his teammates have honored him as Most Valuable.
Ken's event specialties are the medley and the breaststroke. The medley consists of two lengths each of the front crawl, breastroke, backstroke, and butterfly.
Swimming under Coach Harold Baer, Ken placed twice in the first Interim League conference swim meet held this year at Maine West. Ken grabbed a fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke and a second in the individual medley.
A little over a week ago Dennis Luzinski, Maine West hurdler on the Warrior track squad of Coach Ed Smith, raced to a first in the low hurdles and a fifth in the high hurdles to cap off a high school starring career. The meet was the second Interim League conference track meet, which was won by West over eight other schools.
A highlight in Denny's career came late in March in two separate meets. Denny took two firsts, the high and low hurdles, in the Evanston Relays, and came back the following week to take a first in the highs and a second in the lows in the 71-school Oak Park Relays, with West third.
John Reese transferred to Maine West from Ohio and before that from New Orleans. John started on Coach Gaston Freeman's Warrior basketball quintet and pitched and played outfield for Coach Al Carstens' Interim League championship baseball team.
In the opening Maine West diamond encounter this year against the Evanston Wildkits, John threw a one-hit shutout. As Carstens' undenied number one hurler, John went against Maine East in the first game of State baseball play and blanked the powerful Blue Demon offense, 2-0.
When not on the mound, John sports a hefty batting average from center field.
Most Valuable basketball player Mike Rowlee was West's only entrant on the Interim League all-star bucket team. Besides playing basketball for the Warriors, Mike is Coach Carstens' first baseman on West's champion baseball team.
During the bucket season, Mike hit on 40 per cent of his field goal attempts, and on 61 per cent from the charity stripe. Mike scored a total of 257 points this year on the hardcourt.
A surprised Elgin baseball team saw Mike blast a home run with two outs in the last inning of the game to bring an early-season win to West, adding to the baseball squad's 15-2-1 overall record.
Art Steele holds the Maine East fieldhouse pole vaulting record and led the Warrior track team to victory in the Interim track meet a week ago.
Art leaped 22 feet, one-half inch in the Interim meet to take an undisputed in the broad jump, also setting a League record. He also came in second in the pole vaulting.
In his junior year, Art was voted as the Most Valuable trackman by his fellow athletes. Art this year garnered West's only tally in the State track meet by tying for a fifth in the broad jump; Art was jumping at the time with an injured ankle. Art high jumps also, and on occasion runs the hurdles.