Enjoying the ride: Eastland ready for another trip to NIU
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| Eastland's Tony Dunlap Jr. celebrates in front of Austin Oberbruner of Dakota near the end of the fourth quarter on Friday evening. (Chris Padgett/cpadgett@svnmail.com) |
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Eastland boys basketball coach Tony Dunlap approached the ladder set up under the basket at River Ridge High School, smiling from ear-to-ear as the Cougar fans’ cheering got louder.
As Dunlap reached the top of the ladder, the noise reached a crescendo; he turned to his right, held up his index finger and said, “One more game, now, one more.” He then cut the last piece of the net and raised it over his head in triumph, accompanied with a fist pump.
“This belongs to everyone,” Dunlap said of Eastland’s 45-36 sectional championship victory over Dakota. “All these boys, all their families, all these fans, this is for all of them. This is so special, and everyone should share in it.”
For the second time in three seasons, the Cougars will play in the Class 1A DeKalb Supersectional. The 27-4 Cougars will face 31-2 Newark at Northern Illinois University’s Convocation Center at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“NIU, that’s a whole other level,” said Eastland senior guard Tony Dunlap Jr., the only Cougar who has played on both sectional championship teams. “This is big, but that’s just so much bigger. I’m really happy to go back, ready to play there again. This all just keeps getting better.”
Dunlap’s younger teammates agree. As a sophomore in 2008, Dunlap was the youngster on a team full of talent. Now, as the lone senior, he is the veteran leader of a scrappy group that refuses to lose.
His teammates all remember watching from the Convocation Center stands as freshmen, dreaming of the day they would be the ones leading Eastland out on that floor.
“It’s going to feel so much different going up there as a player this time instead of a fan,” Eastland junior forward Mack Byers said.
“It will be a lot more fun. There won’t be a lot of pressure, I don’t think, because we’re all in this together; we’re a team, we’re all part of this deal and we’ll stick together no matter what happens out there.”
That’s been the Cougars’ motto all year long: play your role, play as a team and have fun.
It’s worked well. Eastland suffered only one losing streak the entire season, and that was only two games long (South Beloit and West Carroll) during the final week of the regular season.
“This has been a fantastic ride,” Tony Dunlap Jr. said, “and it’s been even better to be on it with these guys. We want to keep this going as long as we can.”
The ride two years ago came to a screeching halt at DeKalb, when the Cougars fell behind 22-2 after the first quarter and never caught up in a 64-44 loss to St. Anne.
Having that memory fresh on his mind come Tuesday, Tony Dunlap Jr. knows how important it will be for the Cougars to calm down quickly once the game starts.
“We have to set the tone, play at a fast tempo and pick our spots to attack the defense,” he said. “We have to control the ball, get a feel for the court, play pressure defense and just trust in what’s gotten us here.”
As proud as the 2008 team is in being the first Eastland boys team to make it to the supersectional, they’re pulling even harder for this year’s team to better that accomplishment.
It’s a wish this group hopes to grant for all their fans.
“They set the bar, and now we want to get farther than that,” junior Reid Lessman said. “The Elite 8 is pretty sweet, but we want to get past that and go where no other Eastland team has gone before.”
Eastland (27-4) vs. Newark (31-2)
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday
Where: NIU Convocation Center
Radio: WCCI-FM (100.3)
At stake: A trip to the Final 4 at the Class 1A state tournament this weekend in Peoria
