Parade planned for Dundee-Crown Chargers

March Madness has taken on a new meaning for the Dundee-Crown High School community.

The Carpentersville high school's boys basketball team will compete this weekend in the Class 4A Final Four tournament for the first time in the high school's 26-year history.

Dundee-Crown's players, staff and fans admit the Chargers are not favored to win a state title, but local residents say the squad deserves recognition regardless of how they fare in the Peoria tournament.

"They've been knocking off teams ranked higher than them, which is pretty impressive," Carpentersville Village President Bill Sarto said.

To celebrate the Chargers' record-setting season, Sarto, officials from Community Unit District 300 and leaders from other towns that feed into Dundee-Crown have organized a caravan for the returning basketball squad on Sunday.

When the Chargers return to the area around 2 p.m. Sunday, police and fire vehicles will escort the team bus through the towns that send students to Dundee-Crown until the bus arrives at the high school, according to village and school officials.

"I thought it was something that we should do to pay honor to them," Sarto said. "With all the negative news that's out there today, it's great to have something like this in your community."

The route is set to start at Route 72 and Randall Road in Sleepy Hollow and go through West Dundee, East Dundee and Algonquin before ending in the Dundee-Crown parking lot, officials said.

Fans are invited to assemble on the Carpentersville bridge and in Carpenter Park, where Dundee-Crown dancers and super fans will hold a rally for the team.

Carpentersville Fire Chief John Schuldt, whose department will escort the Dundee-Crown bus through the village, compared the Chargers to the small-town basketball team in the 1986 movie "Hoosiers," in which the unlikely contender gets a shot at a state title.

"Dundee-Crown gets a bad rap sometimes. This is just another example of the good things that can come out of Carpentersville," Schuldt said. "These kids from all different backgrounds show the younger kids that anything's possible if you work hard."

If you don't have a ticket to Peoria, you can catch the semifinal game at 6:30 p.m. Friday on WPWR-TV (my 50). Same goes for the consolation game at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.