St. Francis’ Moran ready to defend,
whether on the pitch or the front lines
By Chris Walker
Nurses are suffering severe stress during the coronavirus pandemic. It‘s wearing them down mentally, emotionally and physically.
St. Francis senior Anna Moran would be in their company right now if she could, but the future nurse still hasn’t started at Marquette, let alone graduated from high school.
“I’ve actually been asked a lot by my parents, sisters and stuff about being a nurse now, nd I think this pandemic makes me want to be a nurse even more,” she said. “I wish I could get a job right away and help people with it even though I’d be put in risky situation.
“I’ve talked to my dad (who's a doctor), and he said you can learn a lot from situations and not only from the profession standpoint, but from daily life. It makes me want to be a nurse. I wish I was further along in the process.”
If this were a normal spring, Moran and the Spartans would be seriously eyeing their sectional seed and playoff pairing in the Class AA state series right about now if the season hadn’t been canceled due to COVID-19 and the state shut down order from Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
The IHSA met via-remote conferencing on April 21 and announced its decision to cancel all IHSA spring state tournaments. That decision was reached in conjunction with the announcement from the governor and the Illinois State Board of Education on April 17 that the 2019-20 school year would be completed via e-;earning.
St. Francis was scheduled to host Mother McAuley on May 11 before finishing the regular season with another nonconference game against Metea Valley on May 14.
Instead, Moran’s left wondering what could’ve happened this year while thinking ahead about where this leaves her with the game itself.
“I think we would’ve gone far,” she said. “We lost a lot of key players, but we still had Claire (Reinke) and Lauren (Bruce) and other great people back; and this year to last year’s team, the personality was completely different. We all got along and kind of clicked this year. We all wanted to be there to work. I thought we were clicking really well in practice, so it’s sad we didn’t get to play.”
The senior defender can be a bit of a risk-taker on the field, utilizing speed and power that impresses. Unfortunately, she won’t be taking those risks this spring.
“She can get away it, because she’s fast and powerful and good with the ball at her feet,” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. “We used to have to get on her because sometimes she would take risks she didn’t have to take, but she was good enough to get away with it.”
She’ll certainly miss playing for Winslow.
“He has a standard of where he wants you to be at in games and practices, and he wants 100 percent effort in practice,” she said. “He pushes you mentally and physically to be the best player you can be. He also wants you to have fun. So he does a number of things to balance you. He knows when to push you and when to make a joke. He knows how to coach, so he’s been very successful.”
Fellow senior Julie Zeman will miss having a strong presence in the back next to her.
“She is extremely reliable and always pulls through,” Zeman said. “She also is fun to play with. Her positivity on the field is contagious and just makes it more fun to be on the field.”
Senior Bella DeFeo missed her junior year with a knee injury so this would’ve been her first season playing with Moran. That opportunity was lost.
“We were going to be captains together, and I think we would’ve led the team well,” DeFeo said. “She’s a strong defender, and I was looking forward to having her as a leader in our backline. Not only that, we’re good friends off the field as well. We had a lot of great memories during our time at Francis.”
Moran’s two oldest sisters went to Glenbard South while her sister closest to her in age was the first from the family to attend St. Francis. Grace Moran, who played volleyball for the Spartans, graduated in 2016.
“I shadowed (Grace), and she never had anything bad to say about (St. Francis),” she said. “And I had gone to private schools my whole life and had a great experience so I felt natural when I came to St. Francis.
“There was a sense of community so I thought I would do very well here and the academics are a little more challenging and can better prepare me for college for nursing.”
Moran is a member of the National Honors Society and was nominated for the American Legion Award so academics are most definitely a big deal to her.
She played into her freshman year for the Naperville Soccer Association, but missed her entire freshman season at St. Francis after suffering an avulsion fracture to her hip. During her sophomore year she was named a captain and helped lead the JV team to a conference title during an undefeated run before being a key force on last year’s backline.
This year, she was ready to help the Spartans make a run through a rugged regular season schedule that would prepare them for a serious postseason run. She wasn’t able to get any of that nor was she able to get the escape that soccer has provided.
“My goal always was to get my homework done before practice,” she said. “Sometimes I would get so overwhelmed (with school), but I knew I could to go to practice and let it go for a while and play the game for the love of the game and get endorphins going. I always look forward to the evenings.
“I remember my club coach would be flexible around finals and lot of the girls didn’t come to practice that week, but the other half would be there because we needed that break away from school. I need that. Soccer helps clear my head, gets me thinking straight and puts me in a better mood.”
When you take the game you love and mix in a coach you respect and enjoy playing for, teammates who you seriously love playing with and being around, and add new turf at St. Francis just waiting for someone to play on it, it’s no wonder Moran is disappointed with how this all played out.
“I love the game,” she said. “It’s my stress reliever. And I’ve been super lucky with my teammates. I’ve never had a bad teammate. Some of my best friends are some of the same people I’ve played with since the park district (league).
“I love the challenge of the game, the competitive aspect to it. I just love the fast pace and when we really play well and you see great plays happen. When things really click and you’re on a good team and making great plays, and getting good wins. That’s the best.”
There’s a chance that Moran will play at Marquette, but also quite a bit of uncertainty around it happening.
“I talked to the Marquette coach, and he’s a great friend with my club coach Ed Leon. He was interested in me possibly walking on,” she said. “He said he’d like to see me play full field in the spring, but that didn’t happen so now that’s up in the air. It’s still a possibility, but he can’t really see me play again. It’s a matter of whether they have someone on the team like me or not.”
Her decision to go to Marquette wasn’t a difficult one. She was looking at three potential destinations and probably would’ve been pleased with any of them.
“It was a pretty easy decision on Marquette,” she said. “I visited the one summer going into my junior year, and my sister (Grace) was at Loyola. I liked the nursing program (at Marquette), and it was direct admit, so I narrowed it down. I loved St. Louis University too.
“And I’ve been to Loyola so many times I didn’t even do a visit. And then I went to Marquette again and felt at home. I liked the tour guide and everyone I met, and I wasn’t going too far away.”
After volunteering during a couple of recent summers at Central DuPage Hospital (CDH) and attending a med student camp last summer, Moran was reminded that her path to become a nurse was the ideal one in her heart.
“I used to bring the patients from room to room at CDH and bring in family members so I’d get to talk to them and let them know what’s going on,” she said. “It was interesting to be in the thick of it, even though as a volunteer I wasn’t too deep in it.
“I like being able to help people, and going into senior year last summer I was able to go to a mini med student camp and learned to do some things, a ton of different things that made me fall in love with the medical field.”
Unfortunately, in her role as a loving granddaughter, Moran cannot save her grandfather, who is suffering from incurable stage four pancreatic cancer and living with her and her family.
He would’ve been there rooting her on this spring from the bleachers at St. Francis and now he’s terminally ill with little time. Now she’s the one rooting him on, helping him through love and companionship and appreciating the time she now has to spend with him and the rest of her family.
“I’ve tried to look at the bright side. It’s hard missing so much of my senior year but I also have had so much extra time to spend with my grandpa, and he doesn’t have that much time left,” she said. “He has his good days and bad days, but he’s sad. We’ve had him living with us since the end of January. We’re just taking care of him. He barely missed any of my games, and the team loves him.”
She’s obviously compassionate already, empathizing with the pain and suffering of her grandfather. Some kids never figure out whom they want to be when they grow up. Moran’s known for a while now and is seeing glimpses of the woman she’ll become as a nurse.
“I’ve always wanted to go into medical field and to be hands-on with my job and a job helping people in any way,” she said. “It’s cool. My dad is doctor, and he has said that nursing is the most hands-on and that things wouldn’t run without nurses. They do a lot of the dirty work. That draws me to it. I want to be there for them when they’re most vulnerable and need the most help.”
Moran said she’s learning towards oncology or pediatrics, after witnessing what her grandfather is living with today as well as her love of kids.
“Being around my grandpa has made me realize how big a of a toll on a family and a patient this can be, and I can relate to people and sympathize and help them through it, make a difference in time of need because of sickness,” she said. “I also love kids so I’m thinking about becoming a pediatric nurse.”
She’s ready to get started on her new life in Milwaukee.
“I’ve very excited for college and meeting roommates and friends,” she said. “I’m super excited for college. I can’t wait to do clinicals in college and all the education challenges. I just think I’m excited for all of it. I’m very eager and don’t want to miss out on anything.”
whether on the pitch or the front lines
By Chris Walker
Nurses are suffering severe stress during the coronavirus pandemic. It‘s wearing them down mentally, emotionally and physically.
St. Francis senior Anna Moran would be in their company right now if she could, but the future nurse still hasn’t started at Marquette, let alone graduated from high school.
“I’ve actually been asked a lot by my parents, sisters and stuff about being a nurse now, nd I think this pandemic makes me want to be a nurse even more,” she said. “I wish I could get a job right away and help people with it even though I’d be put in risky situation.
“I’ve talked to my dad (who's a doctor), and he said you can learn a lot from situations and not only from the profession standpoint, but from daily life. It makes me want to be a nurse. I wish I was further along in the process.”
If this were a normal spring, Moran and the Spartans would be seriously eyeing their sectional seed and playoff pairing in the Class AA state series right about now if the season hadn’t been canceled due to COVID-19 and the state shut down order from Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
The IHSA met via-remote conferencing on April 21 and announced its decision to cancel all IHSA spring state tournaments. That decision was reached in conjunction with the announcement from the governor and the Illinois State Board of Education on April 17 that the 2019-20 school year would be completed via e-;earning.
St. Francis was scheduled to host Mother McAuley on May 11 before finishing the regular season with another nonconference game against Metea Valley on May 14.
Instead, Moran’s left wondering what could’ve happened this year while thinking ahead about where this leaves her with the game itself.
“I think we would’ve gone far,” she said. “We lost a lot of key players, but we still had Claire (Reinke) and Lauren (Bruce) and other great people back; and this year to last year’s team, the personality was completely different. We all got along and kind of clicked this year. We all wanted to be there to work. I thought we were clicking really well in practice, so it’s sad we didn’t get to play.”
The senior defender can be a bit of a risk-taker on the field, utilizing speed and power that impresses. Unfortunately, she won’t be taking those risks this spring.
“She can get away it, because she’s fast and powerful and good with the ball at her feet,” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. “We used to have to get on her because sometimes she would take risks she didn’t have to take, but she was good enough to get away with it.”
She’ll certainly miss playing for Winslow.
“He has a standard of where he wants you to be at in games and practices, and he wants 100 percent effort in practice,” she said. “He pushes you mentally and physically to be the best player you can be. He also wants you to have fun. So he does a number of things to balance you. He knows when to push you and when to make a joke. He knows how to coach, so he’s been very successful.”
Fellow senior Julie Zeman will miss having a strong presence in the back next to her.
“She is extremely reliable and always pulls through,” Zeman said. “She also is fun to play with. Her positivity on the field is contagious and just makes it more fun to be on the field.”
Senior Bella DeFeo missed her junior year with a knee injury so this would’ve been her first season playing with Moran. That opportunity was lost.
“We were going to be captains together, and I think we would’ve led the team well,” DeFeo said. “She’s a strong defender, and I was looking forward to having her as a leader in our backline. Not only that, we’re good friends off the field as well. We had a lot of great memories during our time at Francis.”
Moran’s two oldest sisters went to Glenbard South while her sister closest to her in age was the first from the family to attend St. Francis. Grace Moran, who played volleyball for the Spartans, graduated in 2016.
“I shadowed (Grace), and she never had anything bad to say about (St. Francis),” she said. “And I had gone to private schools my whole life and had a great experience so I felt natural when I came to St. Francis.
“There was a sense of community so I thought I would do very well here and the academics are a little more challenging and can better prepare me for college for nursing.”
Moran is a member of the National Honors Society and was nominated for the American Legion Award so academics are most definitely a big deal to her.
She played into her freshman year for the Naperville Soccer Association, but missed her entire freshman season at St. Francis after suffering an avulsion fracture to her hip. During her sophomore year she was named a captain and helped lead the JV team to a conference title during an undefeated run before being a key force on last year’s backline.
This year, she was ready to help the Spartans make a run through a rugged regular season schedule that would prepare them for a serious postseason run. She wasn’t able to get any of that nor was she able to get the escape that soccer has provided.
“My goal always was to get my homework done before practice,” she said. “Sometimes I would get so overwhelmed (with school), but I knew I could to go to practice and let it go for a while and play the game for the love of the game and get endorphins going. I always look forward to the evenings.
“I remember my club coach would be flexible around finals and lot of the girls didn’t come to practice that week, but the other half would be there because we needed that break away from school. I need that. Soccer helps clear my head, gets me thinking straight and puts me in a better mood.”
When you take the game you love and mix in a coach you respect and enjoy playing for, teammates who you seriously love playing with and being around, and add new turf at St. Francis just waiting for someone to play on it, it’s no wonder Moran is disappointed with how this all played out.
“I love the game,” she said. “It’s my stress reliever. And I’ve been super lucky with my teammates. I’ve never had a bad teammate. Some of my best friends are some of the same people I’ve played with since the park district (league).
“I love the challenge of the game, the competitive aspect to it. I just love the fast pace and when we really play well and you see great plays happen. When things really click and you’re on a good team and making great plays, and getting good wins. That’s the best.”
There’s a chance that Moran will play at Marquette, but also quite a bit of uncertainty around it happening.
“I talked to the Marquette coach, and he’s a great friend with my club coach Ed Leon. He was interested in me possibly walking on,” she said. “He said he’d like to see me play full field in the spring, but that didn’t happen so now that’s up in the air. It’s still a possibility, but he can’t really see me play again. It’s a matter of whether they have someone on the team like me or not.”
Her decision to go to Marquette wasn’t a difficult one. She was looking at three potential destinations and probably would’ve been pleased with any of them.
“It was a pretty easy decision on Marquette,” she said. “I visited the one summer going into my junior year, and my sister (Grace) was at Loyola. I liked the nursing program (at Marquette), and it was direct admit, so I narrowed it down. I loved St. Louis University too.
“And I’ve been to Loyola so many times I didn’t even do a visit. And then I went to Marquette again and felt at home. I liked the tour guide and everyone I met, and I wasn’t going too far away.”
After volunteering during a couple of recent summers at Central DuPage Hospital (CDH) and attending a med student camp last summer, Moran was reminded that her path to become a nurse was the ideal one in her heart.
“I used to bring the patients from room to room at CDH and bring in family members so I’d get to talk to them and let them know what’s going on,” she said. “It was interesting to be in the thick of it, even though as a volunteer I wasn’t too deep in it.
“I like being able to help people, and going into senior year last summer I was able to go to a mini med student camp and learned to do some things, a ton of different things that made me fall in love with the medical field.”
Unfortunately, in her role as a loving granddaughter, Moran cannot save her grandfather, who is suffering from incurable stage four pancreatic cancer and living with her and her family.
He would’ve been there rooting her on this spring from the bleachers at St. Francis and now he’s terminally ill with little time. Now she’s the one rooting him on, helping him through love and companionship and appreciating the time she now has to spend with him and the rest of her family.
“I’ve tried to look at the bright side. It’s hard missing so much of my senior year but I also have had so much extra time to spend with my grandpa, and he doesn’t have that much time left,” she said. “He has his good days and bad days, but he’s sad. We’ve had him living with us since the end of January. We’re just taking care of him. He barely missed any of my games, and the team loves him.”
She’s obviously compassionate already, empathizing with the pain and suffering of her grandfather. Some kids never figure out whom they want to be when they grow up. Moran’s known for a while now and is seeing glimpses of the woman she’ll become as a nurse.
“I’ve always wanted to go into medical field and to be hands-on with my job and a job helping people in any way,” she said. “It’s cool. My dad is doctor, and he has said that nursing is the most hands-on and that things wouldn’t run without nurses. They do a lot of the dirty work. That draws me to it. I want to be there for them when they’re most vulnerable and need the most help.”
Moran said she’s learning towards oncology or pediatrics, after witnessing what her grandfather is living with today as well as her love of kids.
“Being around my grandpa has made me realize how big a of a toll on a family and a patient this can be, and I can relate to people and sympathize and help them through it, make a difference in time of need because of sickness,” she said. “I also love kids so I’m thinking about becoming a pediatric nurse.”
She’s ready to get started on her new life in Milwaukee.
“I’ve very excited for college and meeting roommates and friends,” she said. “I’m super excited for college. I can’t wait to do clinicals in college and all the education challenges. I just think I’m excited for all of it. I’m very eager and don’t want to miss out on anything.”