Suburban Chicago student-athletes in ‘class of COVID’ look back at high school careers shaped by pandemic

Recently graduated high school seniors were affected by the coronavirus pandemic like no other class.

The public health emergency began in March of their freshman year and was declared over just as they were graduating this spring.

But for student-athletes in the “class of COVID” in the Chicago Tribune’s suburban coverage areas, the canceled season in spring 2020 was only the beginning.

Here are some of their stories.

Haley Baldwin, Wauconda

Before her freshman year, Haley Baldwin dreamed about becoming a standout two-sport athlete at Wauconda. She had started playing softball when she was 5 years old and also loved basketball.

But Baldwin struggled with daily tasks during the pandemic, when she said she was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Her father, Patrick, had died in 2014, and the realities of the pandemic weighed on her.

“When COVID hit, it did bring back a lot of anxiety,” Baldwin said. “It brought back feelings of loss, and I was scared of something happening to my other family members. I just tried to deal with it one day at a time.

“I developed obsessive-compulsive disorder, and it made everyday life a struggle. I thought repeating certain things would prevent bad things from happening. I kept on washing my hands constantly and picking things up and putting them down. I didn’t tell anybody because I was scared and embarrassed. I thought it would all be over once the pandemic calmed down, but it didn’t go away.”

Baldwin quit basketball after her sophomore season and knew her softball career would end sooner than later.

“After developing OCD, it became harder to have fun playing softball,” she said. “I decided that I would stop playing once high school was over.

“COVID was really tough on me personally. Being isolated from everyone and not really leaving my house caused my mental health to decline. It caused a lot of anxiety, and a part of me felt helpless. I really tried working on my softball skills, but sometimes I had no motivation. When it came to the season being canceled, I was upset, but another part of me was also relieved.”

Baldwin continued to play softball at Wauconda, however, and became a three-year varsity player. She hit .390 with 28 runs, 10 doubles, three home runs and 37 RBIs this past season, when the Bulldogs reached the Class 3A sectional finals for the third straight season.

“Haley showed she was extremely talented,” Wauconda coach Tim Orisek said. “She was a very confident fielder, like a vacuum cleaner at third base. She sucked everything up. She had a strong arm, a good bat and was a good pitcher. She’s a great kid who has a great mom and a very good support system.”

Polubinski triplets, Oswego East

The irony of the situation for Brian Polubinski’s family is not lost on him. When the pandemic started, his triplet sons Josh, Mike and Zach were freshmen at Oswego East, and his son Jake was a junior. All were at home.

“There were so many negatives with COVID in the world, but it was kind of a gift in our house in certain ways, starting with the time we got to spend together,” Brian Polubinski said.

Josh, Mike and Zach Polubinski had a normal freshman football season before the baseball season was canceled. It was not time lost, however.

“It was kind of exciting at the beginning,” Josh Polubinski said. “I remember thinking, ‘This can’t be for long. We’ll be back soon.’ But after two, three, four weeks, though, I realized it wasn’t.”

Remote learning went well for the brothers, who were stationed at computers in different rooms in their house in Plainfield.

“We had a lot of the same classes and could always talk with each other if we had questions, so that helped,” Zach Polubinski said.

Brian Polubinski said the boys were students first.

“That was always a priority in the house anyway, and they were independently strong and taking care of business,” he said.

Josh, Mike and Zach Polubinski also decided to start training more on their own and received a boost from next-door neighbor Andy Baumker, whose kids no longer lived at home. He let the Polubinski boys use the impressive gym in his basement.

“They got to work and made gains,” Brian Polubinski said. “They didn’t waste it. I think they all were able to put on 15-20 pounds of mass and muscle during that time.”

Study, work out, eat, repeat. That was the routine.

“They were eating like 10 meals a day, whatever they could fit in,” Brian Polubinski said. “It got real expensive for me. But when the curtain came back up for sports, it was like, ‘Wow, you guys didn’t waste any time.’”

Josh, Mike and Zach Polubinski all played key roles as starters in two sports. Oswego East’s football team made the playoffs each of the past two seasons, and the baseball team won its first regional and sectional titles this past season.

Mike and Josh Polubinski will continue their baseball careers in the NJCAA Division I program at Fort Scott in Kansas, and Zach Polubinski will go to Aurora University to play both baseball and football.

It will be bittersweet for Brian and Gina Polubinski.

“We’re three weeks away from never spending that much time together again, dropping them off for school,” Brian Polubinski said.

Isabel Cunnea, Marist

It’s possible Isabel Cunnea could have rewritten the Marist softball program’s record book if her freshmen season hadn’t been canceled.

According to coach Colleen Phelan, Cunnea had all the tools to be one of the Southland’s top freshman phenoms.

“We had tryouts and two or three weeks together,” Phelan said. “It was a no-brainer from the start that she would be on the varsity. She probably would have been our three-four hitter as a freshman, just like she was during her sophomore year.”

In just three varsity seasons, the Northwestern recruit finished second in program history in home runs, third in RBIs and fourth in doubles. She was a major reason the RedHawks made three straight state trips and won two Class 4A championships.

What could have been with a fourth season? Cunnea doesn’t dwell on it.

“I mean, records are nice to have and it’s nice to break them, but they really don’t mean much in hindsight,” Cunnea said. “I actually feel like if COVID didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have been as good as I am now.”

She also wouldn’t have a lifetime of memories she made in her backyard with her father, John. Together, they turned a difficult situation into a positive experience.

“My dad is a kidney transplant patient and is immunocompromised due to medication he takes,” Cunnea said. “During COVID, he wasn’t allowed to go out.

“If we would have had a season, I don’t even know if I would have been able to play. I wasn’t able to go out of the house for the first three months out of concern that I might bring it back to him.”

Instead, they turned their backyard into a hitting cage.

“I was basically just at home every single day with him, hitting off the tee or playing catch,” Cunnea said. “I would hit 12 buckets every day. I kept working at hitting the ball harder and harder.”

They continued working together even after the shutdown ended.

“It definitely made me and my dad a lot closer,” Cunnea said. “Even now, we hit all the time, and it’s great. I really love hitting with my dad.”

Cameron Christie, Rolling Meadows

While the pandemic kept Cameron Christie away from basketball competition during the summer after his freshman year and limited his sophomore season at Rolling Meadows to just 14 games, it also meant there was more time for him to work on his game with his older brother, Max.

Max Christie, a 2021 Rolling Meadows graduate, is playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. Not a bad workout partner.

“During COVID, Max and I put in a lot of time shooting together, working on our skills together,” Cameron Christie said. “We helped each other a lot. We definitely had a big advantage that way because even when we were stuck at home, we had each other and we pushed ourselves to get better.”

Rolling Meadows went 14-0 during the abbreviated 2021 season that didn’t include a postseason. That was Max Christie’s senior year, and not being able to chase a state championship together was a heartbreaker for them.

Cameron Christie used it for motivation his last two seasons.

“Having that taken from us definitely pushed me,” he said. “I knew I had to make the most of the chances I had in the playoffs that my brother didn’t get as a senior. I just wanted to take us as far as I could.”

Cameron Christie led the Mustangs to regional championships each of the past two seasons. As a senior, the 6-foot-6 shooting guard averaged 25 points, five rebounds and four assists. He finished fifth in the voting for Mr. Basketball of Illinois.

His next stop is Minnesota, and he’s hoping to follow in his brother’s footsteps by making it to the NBA.

“That’s definitely my goal,” Cameron Christie said. “Watching my brother make those dreams come true makes me want to do it even more.”

Charlene Mendoza, Bloom

Charlene Mendoza finished her high school career with 136 goals, the most by any Bloom soccer player, girl or boy.

Mendoza, a forward, did it in just three years after her freshman season was canceled in 2020. How many goals would Mendoza have scored if not for the pandemic?

“I know I could have made that number a lot higher and made it tougher for someone in the future to top me,” she said. “That bothers me some, but it really makes me more proud of what I was able to do in less time.”

Mendoza, who will play at South Suburban College, said she gained some knowledge of Bloom’s program during preseason practices before the 2020 season was shut down.

“It was tough with the pandemic because I couldn’t play in any games or anything, but I knew I had to put in the work on my own,” Mendoza said. “I spent a lot of time with dribbling and shooting and just tried to get stronger and faster.”

By the time her sophomore year rolled around, Mendoza was more than ready.

She scored 37 goals in her first high school season and followed that with 55 as a junior. She closed things out with 44 goals as a senior this past spring despite missing two weeks with a leg injury.

“It’s been an incredible journey to see her progress as a player,” Bloom coach Zack Radtke said. “She had to battle through some things. She knew a lot of the seniors her freshman year and was excited to play with them. We probably would have had a strong team.

“It’s tough to lose out on a whole season like that, and to see her come back and still put up the numbers she put up, it’s been fun to watch.”

Alyssa Janik, Hobart

Alyssa Janik said she isn’t a jealous person.

But the Manchester commit couldn’t ignore the envy she felt when talking with the freshmen on the Hobart softball team this past season.

“They’re going to have all four years,” Janik said. “I wanted to have that experience, but it was taken away from me by something that none of us could really do anything about.”

That missed time remained on Janik’s mind as one of the lingering effects of the pandemic. She recalled a preseason meeting just after tryouts in 2020, when she hoped to get more information about what to expect from her first year of high school softball.

Instead, she learned the season was canceled.

“It really devastated me,” she said. “That year was supposed to be the start, and it was scary because no one knew what was going to happen next.”

Although softball returned for Janik’s sophomore year, that season felt strange to her.

“I still felt like a freshman because it was my first year,” she said. “In your freshman year, you’re supposed to connect with the older girls and your other teammates, but we didn’t get to do that. My sophomore year just didn’t feel right to me. It’s like I was held back.”

Janik, a first baseman, was determined to make up for it by the time her junior season arrived, and it all came together this past season as she hit .433 with a .900 slugging percentage, 12 home runs and 38 RBIs.

“It really started halfway through my junior year,” she said. “What was the point of dwelling on it if there wasn’t anything I could’ve done about it? So I just focused on the now.

“My junior and senior years were my favorite — by far — because I was able to make more connections with my teammates and coaches and everybody else.”

Megan Norkett, Naperville Central

Naperville Central soccer standout Megan Norkett adjusted well to the challenges faced by students early in the pandemic.

“Obviously, losing your freshman year, which is kind of the year you learn how to get through high school, was definitely a struggle at first,” she said. “But I feel like getting the time at home, I was able to sit down, get all my academics done and play soccer on my own, which helped me build myself better for my sophomore, junior and senior year.

“I feel like the time off actually did help me get better.”

Norkett, who will continue her playing career at Northwestern, thrived academically with remote learning.

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“I know it’s different for a lot of people, but I feel like I was able to sit down and get everything lined up,” she said. “It helped.”

Norkett didn’t get the chance to socialize with her new teammates as a freshman, however. That made it more difficult for players, especially those new to high school competition, to establish chemistry.

“For the soccer side of it, it was not knowing how the program is brought up because my freshman year I didn’t experience being the youngest player on the team,” Norkett said. “It’s kind of different to come in sophomore year and then compete with the freshmen.”

But Norkett eventually became the third three-time all-state pick in program history. She was all-Midwest this past season, when she had 18 goals and four assists.

Norkett ranks fourth on Naperville Central’s career scoring list with 47 goals and is seventh in assists with 33.

“I feel it helped me build up my confidence over the years,” she said of the challenges. “So overall it was good.”

Steve Millar is a freelance reporter. Staff reporters Rick Armstrong and Tony Baranek and freelance reporters Matt Le Cren, Dave Melton and Bobby Narang contributed.