Eastern Illinois adds three Chicagoland names to its Class of 2019

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Eastern Illinois’ new head football coach Adam Cushing has hit the recruiting road hard since taking over the program. And he’s already finding in-state success. The Panthers have added three Chicagoland names this past week for its Class of 2019, in Stevenson OL Ivan Gleyzer, Nazareth Academy DT Cameron Leach and Rich Central OLB Jason Johnson. The recent commits to play in Charleston really points to the excitement level within the Panthers program under Cushing and his staff. It’s a key factor for players in making their commitment.

"I just really like the new coaching staff at EIU," Cameron Leach said. "They are ready to bring back the winning tradition at EIU. The EIU coaches have that Northwestern pedigree and are also a younger group of coaches that I can relate to pretty easily. I made my official visit this past weekend and the players already on the team are excited about the new staff."

Ivan Gleyzer agreed.

"The new coaching staff at EIU was a big factor in my decision,” Gleyzer said. "The new staff led by Coach (Adam) Cushing has a lot of coaching experience while at Northwestern, They also have a lot of ties to Chicagoland and in-state schools. The entire EIU coaching staff is also very familiar with each other and they are really high energy guys and they are very excited to get going."

In other news, Lincoln-Way East’s junior four star-ranked athlete AJ Henning released his Top 10 schools list on Wednesday night via his Twitter account. Henning has named Illinois, LSU, Northwestern, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue and Stanford on that list. Henning has received scholarship offers from across the country and is the state's top-ranked recruit in the latest Rivals.com Class of 2020 rankings in the Land of Lincoln. Henning is also ranked as the 84th best recruit in the nation in the latest Rivals100 Class of 2020 national prospect rankings. 

Montini Catholic senior defensive back Jermari Harris has seen his recruiting stock take off this month. He has several college options with less than a month left before National Letter of Intent signing day on February 6th. On Wednesday, Harris added an offer from NIU’s new head coach Thomas Hammock. He later recapped his recruiting news,

"Coach (Thomas) Hammock from NIU called and offered me a scholarship," Harris said. "The NIU offer was a real surprise and that was the first time I heard from NIU. NIU wants me to make an official visit in two weeks. I'm visiting Ball State this weekend and then NIU the following week."

Harris has also remained on the short list of several FBS schools.

"Iowa has still been recruiting me pretty hard. They have been in school a few times and Coach (Phil) Parker is planning to be in my school tomorrow (Thursday). Coach Parker said he wants to see me in person. Iowa is planning to take one more defensive back in this class and they are telling me that I'm high up on their recruiting board. Pitt is also planning to be in school tomorrow. Pitt along with Nebraska are a few of the newer schools who have started to show some late interest in me."

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