Johnsburg soars to championship at Grant tournament
There are banners in the gym at Johnsburg that cause daydreams of what could be.
The boys basketball team has its sights set on at least duplicating, if not exceeding, what the program did during the 2005-06 season. That year, the Skyhawks reeled off a 29-0 mark before falling in the sectional.
Still, despite the imperfect ending, that team ranks as one of the best in school history and therefore has been justly documented inside the gym.
"My brother (Kyle) was on that team and I was in eighth grade that year," Johnsburg senior center CJ Fiedorowicz said. "That was a great team. We'd love to match what that team did and even keep it going. We're feeling really good about where we are."
The Skyhawks should. They are well on their way to putting up some of their own daydream-inducing banners.
On Saturday, Johnsburg stayed unbeaten and won its second tournament of the season by discarding Richmond-Burton in the championship game of the Grant Holiday Tournament, 53-34.
The Skyhawks, who also won the Johnsburg-Richmond Burton Thanksgiving Tournament, move to a sparkling 11-0 on the season. They went 4-0 at Grant over the holidays.
Richmond-Burton, meanwhile, drops to 7-6 overall.
"Our guys look at the banners from that (2005-06) team and our other great teams every day and their expectations are high," Johnsburg coach Luke Ravlin said. "They want to do something like that, too. We're going to have to stay focused every day, but I think this can be a really special group. We've got a lot of guys who have played a lot of varsity basketball together, guys who have started together on varsity since they were freshmen (Fiedorowicz and guard Mike Dixon). We've got other guys who have been on varsity three years.
"There's no replacement for that type of experience. Plus, we've got a group of guys who really want to see this team succeed and they play good, unselfish basketball and they put the team first. That's all really important."
Against Richmond-Burton, it was important for the Skyhawks to tighten up their defense. The Rockets had shot the ball well throughout the tournament and Johnsburg didn't want to give their sharp-shooters time to spot up.
"A key for us defensively was to get a hand up on all shots and extend ourselves to cover their shooters," Ravlin said. "I thought we did a pretty good job of that."
Actually, a very good job.
Johnsburg held Richmond-Burton to just 12 field goals on the game. The Rockets had a mere 9 points at halftime and didn't score their first bucket of the fourth quarter until there were only two minutes remaining in the game.
On the night, they connected on just 12-of-52 shots, a 23 percent clip.
"The hoop didn't like us tonight," said senior guard Chad Okane, who scored a team-high 15 points, including 3 three-pointers, but was the only Rocket in double-figures. "We just weren't making shots. In the third quarter, we kind of came around (outscoring Johnsburg 17-15), but then we kind of faded away like we did in the first half."
Johnsburg played part of the first half without the 6-foot-6 Fiedorowicz, who left the game in the first quarter with a sprained left ankle.
But Fiedorowicz, who is headed to Iowa on a football scholarship as a tight end, returned in the second quarter and wound up tying Dixon for team-high scoring honors.
Both Fiedorowicz and Dixon scored 12 points and both were named to the all-tournament team. Fiedorowicz was voted the most valuable player.
"That's a pretty nice combination to have," Richmond-Burton coach Brandon Creason said of Fiedorowicz and Dixon. "They're a really good team and against a team like that, you can't not shoot well and have no emotion out there at times, like we did."
Also making the all-tournament team at Grant were: Shane Richardson (Grant), Matt Pucher (Grayslake North), Teddy Ludwick (Grayslake North), Josh McNaughton (McHenry), Brian Madson (McHenry), Mike Dombrowski (Johnsburg), Okane, Kenneth Riordan (Richmond-Burton) and Robert Rey (Northridge Prep).
McHenry 67, Grayslake North 54: In the third place game at Grant, McHenry pulled out the win thanks to 21 points from Jimmy Preston and 17 points from Josh McNaughton. Grayslake North got 21 points from Teddy Ludwick and 12 points from Matt Pucher.
Lakes 68, Grant 62: In the fifth place game at Grant, Lakes got out to a great start with some hot shooting in the first half. The Eagles put four players in double-figures: John Androus (20 points), Tanner Blain (15), Marcell KirkmanBey (12) and Tyler Swindle (10). Jeremy Wiker led Grant with 19 points and Shane Richardson added 15 points.
Northridge Prep 50, Round Lake 48: In the seventh place game at Grant, guard Robert Rey hit a 3-pointer with about five seconds remaining in the game to lift Northridge Prep to a dramatic victory. Rey scored a team-high 17 points. The Knights also got 12 points from Liam Brannon. Round Lake got a game-high 18 points out of Jake Paulsen. Nick Lange scored 15 points and Jon Martinez added 10 points for the Panthers.