Rams Kuligowski Wins Class 3A Three-Point Shooting Contest

Steve Kuligowski could certainly bring it. That is the left-handed pitcher was a star at Grayslake High School. Now a hurler at North Park University, he and his younger sister, Sarah, made a pledge to each other to one day swim with sharks.

Huh? Toothless sharks?

"I love sharks,'' said Sarah Kuligowski. "I want to study sharks. Me and Steven want to swim with sharks."

Kuligowski, now a 12th-grader at Grayslake Central, is heading South for college to see those sharks at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She will study marine biology.

And she will have a few stories to tell her fellow students. Like how she joined many other girls basketball players across the state of Illinois in a fun contest of making three-pointers. Only her story goes on much longer.

Kuligowski and teammate Skyler Jessop traveled to Normal last week as Central's qualifiers for the statewide three-point shooting contest. Kuligowski went on from there to win the Class 3A championship in three-point shooting.

"I thought I was very calm about it,'' she said. "It didn't really hit me. After I finished the press conference I checked my phone. I actually didn't know that the whole community was proud of me."

Kuligowski hit 11 three-pointers in the Illinois State University gym last Thursday to eliminate 28 other competitors. In the final four, she blew away the other three contestants with a whopping 13 shots out of 15. That was highest total recorded in all four classes competing at state. She beat out the score of 128 state competitors.

"That was her 15 minutes of fame,'' said Central coach Steve Ikenn. "It's a nice way to go out. Being the 3A champion is a big deal. She just drained jumper after jumper."

Maybe her great news took some of the sting out of the season-ending loss for her Rams in the sectional.

Central, the top seed in the St. Viator Sectional, fell on a last-second shot to Vernon Hills on Feb. 23. Those Cougars went to finish second in the state.

"That was very upsetting,'' Kuligowski said. "That's because it was a buzzer-beater. But it was still incredible to play on our team that had so much heart."

Each three-point shooter must survive four rounds of shooting before even going to state. Kuligowski finished in the top four during two regional and two sectional competitions.

"They gave us the option of competing in a little shoot out in practice,'' she said. "And I decided to do it this year. I was pretty safe in most rounds."

Ikenn didn't notice this senior getting the jitters as the competition moved towards state.

"Sarah had the right attitude,'' he said. "She didn't put any pressure in herself. She regarded it as a win-win situation."

All four state winners were placed in the Queen of the Hill competition on March 3. Kuligowski placed third in this event.

"I was already a state champion so I had nothing to lose,'' she said.