Boys basketball: Stepanich, three-sport star, leads York to state

York is a 109-year-old school steeped in athletic tradition. Its boys basketball coach, Mike Dunn, knows it well. His great-grandfather, Clarence D. East, was the school’s first athletic director, basketball coach and football coach.

So it was notable what Dunn said this week, when asked about his senior forward Hunter Stepanich.

“He is the most decorated athlete in York history,” Dunn said.

Few athletes anywhere have had the well-rounded success of Stepanich.

An All-American level volleyball hitter, the 6-foot-9 Stepanich played in the state volleyball championship match as a sophomore.

A football tight end, he starred on York’s 2024 Class 8A runner-up, first finalist in school history.

And now Stepanich is making history on the basketball court.

Stepanich and the Dukes, one of the state’s biggest surprises, are in the state semifinals for the first time in school history.

It is York’s first state tournament appearance since reaching the quarterfinals in 1962 and 1967, when eight teams made state. The Dukes (32-4) play Marist (31-5), itself making its first state tournament appearance, in a Class 4A semifinal at 2:30 p.m. Friday in Champaign.

“It’s definitely special to be playing in Champaign, special for the community,” Stepanich said. “We knew that if we stuck together, got better every day and worked hard together, we would achieve whatever we wanted to achieve.”

In this day and age of specialization, a three-sport athlete at a school the size of York is rare. To do it at the level of Stepanich, an academic all-stater who will play both football and volleyball collegiately at Princeton while going premed, even more so.

Stepanich could have probably played basketball in college if he chose that route. Or even baseball. As a junior high baseball pitcher Stepanich was throwing in the low 80s.

“This is my 20th year being a head coach. I’ve coached a lot of multi-sport athletes, but I don’t think there is anything close to Hunter,” Dunn said. “He comes in and works. He never complains, and he is the ultimate leader.”

Stepanich averages 8.9 points and 6.2 rebounds and helps key a defense that gives up just 41 points per game.

“What he does with his size and with his athleticism in our defensive system, the rebounding, not just blocking shots but altering shots, makes us that much better,” Dunn said. “He’s a high-quality character kid that you want to build a program around.”

Stepanich’s path to Princeton in two sports was a circuitous route.

He was focused on football recruiting, but after the state volleyball run Stepanich’s sophomore year a teammate talked him into trying out for a national tournament.

Princeton saw him there, and asked him to make a campus visit. On the visit, Stepanich’s dad brought up the possibility of him playing both sports, and they went back to the football coach and talked to him about it.

“Eventually they both offered me,” Stepanich said. “Princeton was the only place.”

Stepanich, a member of York’s sectional final basketball team as a sophomore, is one of three key players on these Dukes who play football.

Costa Kampas, a 6-foot-6 senior, is a football lineman committed to Georgetown. Jackson Rennick, a 6-foot-4 all-conference player nicknamed the “Worm” for his bleached hair with black spots in homage to former NBA star Dennis Rodman, is going to UW-Whitewater for football.

“We always preach being the most physical team in the state with our defense, rebounding and effort – a lot of what you see on the football team," Stepanich said. “We want to dominate the person across from us. It translates to basketball, the physicality and playing with effort.”

Because of their football commitments over the summer, Dunn really didn’t get a chance to see those three play with his talented young guards like junior Joseph Lubbe, York’s leading scorer, sophomore Will O’Leary and junior Nathan Poku.

But York, which went 14-18 last year, started the season 8-1, won the consolation championship of its Jack Tosh Holiday Classic and eventually shared the West Suburban Silver title.

The Dukes beat Glenbard East on Stepanich’s three-point play with 5.4 seconds left for the program’s first sectional title since 1982, then St. Ignatius in overtime Monday.

Now they play Marist, led by 6-foot-6 senior forward and DeLaSalle transfer Charles Barnes Jr. and 6-foot-7 senior forward and North Carolina State football recruit Stephen Brown.

“Honestly, I thought we’d maybe be a year away from back to where we were two years ago. We just kind of jelled,” Dunn said. “Nobody expected us to be where we are at. We took it one game at a time, stacked wins, and all of a sudden here we are.”