It’s hard to imagine a boys basketball game between Brother Rice and Marist or a girls volleyball match between Marist and Mother McAuley being any more intense than they already are.
But try adding a conference championship to the stakes.
That will become a realistic possibility starting with the 2026-27 school year, when Marist and the eight other current members of the East Suburban Catholic Conference join the Chicago Catholic League and the Girls Catholic Athletic Conference.
Marist boys and girls volleyball coach Jordan Vidovic can’t wait.
“Those rivalry games, it’s not like we weren’t playing those teams anyway, but you could potentially have matchups where there’s even more on the line,” Vidovic said. “You’re competing for a conference championship or a player of the year and that adds to the already heightened excitement of that matchup.
“Then there’s opportunities for new rivalries. We wouldn’t consider Loyola a rival now, but in five years, who knows? We want all the challenges we can get. We embrace that, so we’re excited.”
The Catholic League and GCAC announced Monday that all ESCC members — Marist, Marian Catholic, Joliet Catholic, Benet, Carmel, Nazareth, Notre Dame, St. Patrick and St. Viator — will join their leagues in all sports in 2026-27.
Notre Dame and St. Patrick are all-boys schools that will only join the Catholic League, while the other seven are coed schools that will play in both leagues. The GCAC will also have another new addition in Marmion, currently an all-boys school competing in the Catholic League that plans to transition to coed in 2026-27.
With the added schools, the Catholic League will have 26 members and the GCAC will have 24.
Next school year will be the final one for the ESCC, which was founded in 1974.
The ESCC has already been merged with the Catholic League for football since 2019, so much of the focus of these latest changes will be on how they affect boys and girls basketball, where the conference figures to get a huge boost.
On the boys side, the Catholic League had already seen some of the best seasons in its history in recent years. DePaul Prep has won three straight state championships, while Brother Rice and Mount Carmel both won runner-up trophies in the last two years.
Now, the league is adding the current Class 4A state champion in Benet. St. Patrick finished third in Class 3A this past season. And other ESCC programs — including Marist and Marian Catholic — have had a ton of recent success.
Marian Catholic coach Rick Romeli knows it will be a loaded league.
“I’ll miss the East Suburban, having played in it myself, and there are a lot of good rivalries there,” Romeli said. “But I think it’s a great opportunity for our school and our kids to compete against some other great programs with really established histories.”
As for girls basketball, Nazareth and Carmel have each won a state championship in the last four seasons — as have current GCAC members Montini and Loyola. Local powers Marian Catholic and Marist have had plenty of success, while Benet has been a consistent state contender.
Providence was an ESCC member in girls sports until joining the GCAC in 2015, so longtime Celtics girls basketball coach Eileen Copenhaver — who has led her team to five straight regional championships — knows better than most exactly what the league is gaining.
Nazareth's Brendan Flanagan (9) lifts the Class 5A state championship trophy after beating Joliet Catholic at Illinois State's Hancock Stadium in Normal on Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023. (Vincent D. Johnson / Daily Southtown)
“There are some very strong programs that we are going to be adding,” Copenhaver said. “We’re looking at the best conference in the state.”
The same could certainly be said in other sports.
In girls volleyball, four-time state champion Benet and three-time champs Marist and Joliet Catholic join Mother McAuley — which has a state-best 17 titles — and Wheaton St. Francis, which has won state 14 times.
Marian Catholic, Nazareth and Montini have all won championships in the last decade as well.
In baseball, ESCC members Joliet Catholic and Nazareth have combined for four state championships in the last three seasons alone.
They will join reigning Class 4A champion Providence and other local Catholic League powers such as Brother Rice, St. Laurence, Mount Carmel and St. Rita.
Marist films a TikTok with the first-place trophy after besting Yorkville in the Class 4A softball state final at Louisville Slugger Sports Complex in Peoria on Saturday, June 10, 2023. (Andrew-Burke Stevenson / Daily Southtown)
“I think it’s a really good thing for Chicago Catholic League baseball,” St. Laurence coach Pete Lotus said. “I think we already have such a strong league, and now we are adding strong programs with strong baseball traditions.”
The next big question? How many divisions will the new league be broken into and how will they be determined?
Romeli mentioned less travel as a possible benefit for Marian Catholic, but Copenhaver hopes that will not be factored in.
“I’m 100% against geographic divisions,” she said. “I hope we develop a model that has fairness in it, and I want something concrete instead of just picking and choosing every year.
“I hope there’s leadership among coaches and we get a say in it, however they do it.”
My take? Bring it on. This will create more great local matchups and more exciting rivalries across the board in all sports.
Now let’s see how they piece it all together.
