Not only did the Rochelle Hub varsity basketball team win its first regional championship since 2009 on Friday night, it did so on its home floor with a full gym of fans. The Hubs defeated Sterling 84-70 in the IHSA 3A Regional tournament, hosting it for the first time in five seasons.
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ROCHELLE — Not only did the Rochelle Hub varsity basketball team win its first regional championship since 2009 on Friday night, it did so on its home floor with a full gym of fans.
The Hubs defeated Sterling 84-70 in the IHSA 3A Regional tournament, hosting it for the first time in five seasons.
“It couldn't be more special,” Rochelle Head Coach Tim Thompson said. “My first year as head coach we played Kaneland and lost a tough one here. We've always told our ADs we want to host games like this. We need to be here, we need to give ourselves another chance. The community came out to support these kids and it was fantastic."
Rochelle was led in scoring by senior Noah Brown (21 points), junior Raul Aguirre (17 points), senior Adam Kemp (17 points) and senior Ryan Simmons (16 points).
The Hubs overcame a slow start and trailed 18-10 after one quarter. Rochelle outscored Sterling 22-12 in the second quarter and built a lead steadily afterwards, scoring 26 points in both the third and fourth quarters.
“I just don't think we shot the ball well in the first quarter and we kind of hung tough,” Thompson said. “I knew the guys weren't going to give up or give in. We've been shooting the ball way too well lately. There were just a couple of adjustments we had to make. Finally, things started to click. We took that little lead at half. Coming out in the third quarter, we shoot in this gym all the time. We knew we were going to shoot better in the second half."
Rochelle knocked down 10 3-pointers in the game, five of which came from Brown.
The Golden Warriors got the bulk of their scoring from junior John Paul Schilling, who put up 39 points. Rochelle (22-10, 11-3 Interstate 8) lost both of its earlier matchups to Sterling back in November. The Hubs have won 17 of their past 19 games.
“We lost to them twice in a matter of three days early in the year and we always want our team playing its best in February,” Thompson said. “And we were tonight. November was a long time ago."
Thompson said winning big games comes down to senior leadership. Early in the year, he said the team wasn’t playing good basketball and had some issues with injuries and wasn’t shooting the ball well.
In the second half of the year, the team made a commitment, Thompson said. The Hubs took six days off and came back with a new attitude.
“We said, 'OK seniors, what do you want this to be?'” Thompson said. “We weren't even talking about conference championships or regionals at that point. We just wanted to start putting wins together. They came out and beat LaSalle-Peru and had 30 points in the first quarter and that set the tone. And we just started playing good basketball from there on out."
Thompson said the task of winning a regional has been a grind over the years. He’s been in three other regional championship games and has fallen short. You can only win regional championships by getting to them, he said.
“Tonight these guys were ready to play,” Thompson said. “They shot the ball fantastically. It means the world to Rochelle basketball to have all of our traveling teams and RYBA players around to make sure they saw this. It makes them want to work hard to get to the same point that these kids are at."
Leading up to Friday night’s game, players on the team spoke about wanting to win the regional championship for Thompson. It was his first as head coach. He took pride in that and has taken pride over the years in building relationships with players.
“You coach to help them in the game of basketball and in the game of life,” Thompson said. “I want to build relationships with kids and for them to respect me at the end of the day. I wanted to build on the culture that Russ Zick started with open gyms and have guys want to come back. I saw so many of my former players here tonight. It means a lot to me that this team wanted to do it for me."
Rochelle's next game will be against Metamora on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Bradley University in sectional action.
3-point contest
Senior Adam Kemp advanced to the sectional round of the 3-point shooting contest Friday night, making nine shots. He advanced along with Dixon's Sky Goral and LaSalle-Peru's Michael Jereb and Seth Adams. Rochelle's Cooper Hasz (six), Tanner Lager (seven) and Ryan Simmons (six) also competed Friday night but did not advance.