Watching STC lose as kid drives DeMoss today
St. Charles North senior Jonathan DeMoss has a good memory.
How good?
"I remember watching Petey Schmit in the sectional finals when my brother was on the team, and I've been thinking all week I remember him (Schmit) kicking the stairs after they turned it over and lost, and that has been replaying in my mind," DeMoss said. "That just drives me."
The game DeMoss is referring to - St. Charles' loss to Glenbard South in heartbreaking fashion on a late turnover and Raider basket at the St. Charles sectional championship game - happened in 2000.
When DeMoss was in third grade. And it sticks in his mind like yesterday.
His brother Brandon played on that team, one of many talented Saints squads through the years that never could quite get over the hump in the postseason.
As the story goes, after losing that game, the team's star Schmit - who went on to play in an NCAA tournament at Northern Iowa - didn't take off his jersey for five days.
Hopefully there isn't a similar heartbreaking end for this year's North Stars, who take aim at the first sectional championship in school history at 7:30 tonight against Dundee-Crown at the Class 4A Elgin sectional.
Schmit, the Daily Herald All-Area captain who set a school record for free throws, went on to Wisconsin for a year and then transferred to Northern Iowa. Ironically, he closed his college career with a 57-52 loss to Wisconsin in the 2005 NCAA Tournament.
The Saints went 22-5 in Schmit's senior year. St. Charles followed up by winning the sectional title in 2001, a No. 4 seed that won an upset-filled sectional 75-67 over No. 6 Bartlett. The Saints got there by beating Wheaton Warrenville South, Addison Trail and then knocking off No. 1 seed Wheaton North, 59-55.
West Aurora, then the defending state champs, denied the Saints that elusive trip to state with a 63-59 supersectional win at Northern Illinois. (That turned out to be the year Schaumburg became one of the state's most surprising state champions by beating Eddy Curry led-Thornwood in the title game.)
St. Charles basketball then became St. Charles East and St. Charles North basketball, and neither team has been that close to winning a sectional title again.
Until tonight.
"Just for the whole city of St. Charles, it would mean a lot," said DeMoss, a four-year varsity player who has seen the North Stars improve from 10-20 his freshman year to their current school-record 22-8 mark.
"I think our team is good enough to be sectional champions," St. Charles North coach Tom Poulin said. "Now the shots need to fall, you need to defend and you need to take care of business within 32 minutes. But they are winners. They deserve that if they go out and win it."
Just like all the long-time St. Charles basketball fans - Jonathan DeMoss included - deserve to see a team get to state, which is where the North Stars will be with two more victories.
jlemon@dailyherald.com