Heritage Classic clearly a hit
You get the feeling Wheaton Warrenville South girls basketball coach Rob Kroehnke wanted his team to enjoy Saturday's Heritage Classic game and festivities at Hubble Middle School as much as he did.
Everywhere he turned before and after his team's loss to cross-town rival Wheaton North, Kroehnke seemed to be greeting old friends. Colin Gymnasium itself almost seemed to be one of those friends from long ago.
"I've gone to school here and played here," Kroehnke said of the former Wheaton Community High School and Wheaton Central High School, which will close at the end of this school year. "We had shootaround this morning and I just walked in and looked around.
"It's a special place. My folks went to school here. I had my former coach come in and introduced him to the girls before the game. I told the girls, have fun, because you're going to remember it for a long time."
His team might not have won, but it showed a lot of its coach's spirit in the game, taking a lead into the fourth quarter before falling to the DuPage Valley Conference leaders.
Wheaton North coach Dave Eaton worried about how the special occasion might affect his team.
"It was nerve-wracking," Eaton said. "It was a big environment, a different environment than we're used to playing. Usually we play in not so big a crowd. We've got a big crowd here tonight. The kids I think responded well to the atmosphere and played their hearts out, and they just executed our offense down the stretch."
The schools evened things in the nightcap, when the WW South boys defeated the Falcons.
"I think these guys were honored to play the last game here," Tigers boys basketball coach Mike Healy said. "It was a really nice atmosphere, a great crowd. It was fun, and I think our kids looked forward to it."
Not everything went perfectly, however. The sound system sounded as old as the school itself and frequently squealed out of control at the worst moments.
"The squeaky microphone threw me off there a little bit," Eaton said. "I was just hoping it wasn't going to keep going off during everybody's free throws. I just felt terrible. But it was a neat environment to play in."