Losses don't diminish what this Dundee-Crown team accomplished
PEORIA - Losing both games played here at the Class 4A Final Four wasn't what the Dundee-Crown boys basketball team had in mind, but those defeats don't obscure what a sweet ride it was for the 2008-09 Chargers.
The natural feeling of disappointment that accompanied the twin defeats - Friday's 67-46 loss to Waukegan (26-5) in the semifinals and Saturday's 73-52 loss to Thornton (30-2) in the consolation game - will fade quickly.
Memories of the best season in D-C history will never fade.
"It was a blessing to even get here," D-C senior guard Marcus Henry said. "Fourth in state isn't too bad."
No, not too bad at all, Marcus, especially considering you weren't even favored to win your own division of the Fox Valley Conference after a 12-14 finish a year ago. Jacobs was the more popular pick.
Coach Lance Huber's team showed signs of being an impressive squad by winning the Sycamore Thanksgiving tournament. But it wasn't until the Chargers traveled to Jacobs on Feb. 6 and snapped their District 300 rival's 24-game division winning streak that Dundee-Crown grabbed the spotlight and held it.
Suddenly, the hunters were the hunted. The Chargers swept 4 more division games with ease before the rematch with visiting Jacobs on Feb. 27. D-C won that second classic confrontation 56-55 in front of another standing-room crowd by playing heads-up basketball, er, make that tails up.
Henry made the winning play when he inbounded the ball of Mike Peterson's posterior and laid it in for a game winner that will be talked about for years to come. The win clinched an undefeated Valley Division title, the program's second FVC title in four seasons.
D-C was favored to win a regional title on its home floor, but it wasn't easy. Consider: Elgin nearly knocked the Chargers out in a regional semifinal before succumbing 58-52 in overtime.
Huntley tied Dundee-Crown with 14 seconds left in the regional title game before Charles Kimbrough sank 2 free throws and blocked a shot in the final seconds to win it. That sealed D-C's third regional title in six seasons under Huber.
Supported by one of the most vocal student sections in the area, the Chargers came into their own at the Elgin sectional. They defeated McHenry for the third time this season, 48-37, to advance to their first sectional final since 2004.
That's when things started to get really interesting.
Seen by most as underdogs to bigger, physical St. Charles North, D-C rallied from a 7-point halftime deficit and won the sectional title game 51-49, when senior point guard Jeff Beck hit a jumper with 3.5 seconds left and a North Stars desperation 3-pointer didn't fall.
It was the first sectional title since Dundee and Irving Crown High Schools merged in 1983, leaving sports writers with no teams to compare these Chargers to except the great Dundee High Cardunal teams coached by Eugene de Lacey in the 1930s and 1940s.
That sectional victory set the stage for what will go down as the defining moment for the 2008-09 Chargers, not to mention the greatest night in D-C basketball history to date - the NIU supersectional against mighty Neuqua Valley (31-2) at DeKalb.
Facing a team that had defeated 11 Class 4A regional champions, Dundee-Crown played its best game of the season as a decided underdog. Beck scored 29 points and the Chargers used a 16-2 run that bridged the first and second quarters to gain separation. They controlled the game from that point and went on to stun the Wildcats and virtually every basketball observer in the state by qualifying for the Final Four at Carver Arena.
If anything, Dundee-Crown's results in Peoria only magnify the significance of its upset of Neuqua Valley. For the first time in the history of the Fox Valley Conference, a member school had finally reached the state's biggest stage. The fact they didn't win once they reached Peoria matters little.
"Our guys played awesome," D-C coach Lance Huber said after Saturday's consolation game. "If you look at our guys and you look at their guys shaking hands, there's no doubt who the more physically superior team is. We didn't have the biggest guys, or the fastest guys, or the strongest guys, but this group had will and determination. That can only carry you so far. It carried us to fourth place.
The Chargers lifted the fourth-place trophy and bowed to receive their fourth-place medals, smiling from ear-to-ear all the while as they should. But medals fade and trophies rust. These players will take with them souvenirs of greater value.
"Coach was talking earlier about all the trophies and plaques we're going to have," Beck said. "But the best thing we'll have is the friendships we've made and all the great memories we've had.
"I'll remember everything, just being with these guys every single day at practice. There was never really a day when I didn't want to go to practice. I was just hanging out with the guys. It didn't really even feel like practice.
"It's kind of crazy that we accomplished all this. Now they'll remember this, talk about us and remember us as the best Fox Valley Conference team there ever was."
jfitzpatrick@dailyherald.com
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