Steve Wade chuckled a little bit when he heard Dixon and LaSalle-Peru were slugging it out for the NCIC boys basketball title.
"That's kind of a coincidence," Wade said Wednesday night from his home in Kerrsville, Texas, where he recently moved from Dixon. "It was like that in 1967 too."
Wade was a forward on the 1966-67 Dixon boys basketball team that finished 25-2 and ran the table, 11-0, in the NCIC. One of the highlights was a 61-54 victory over the Cavaliers before a packed Lancaster Gym.
"That was the first time we sold out a home game at Dixon," Wade said. "The crowd was huge. I remember there was a half-inch rope separating our student section from the LaSalle-Peru student section. That was the loudest, most intense game we played outside of the Rockford West games."
Bob Branson, a reserve guard for the Dukes that season, has his own memory of that night.
"I can remember that game being sold out," said Branson, now a lawyer in Dixon, "because walking in, there were guys trying to buy tickets out front."
The Dukes were indeed a hot ticket 43 years ago, the last time they won an NCIC title. Their starting lineup included 6-foot-4 center Rusty Cooper; Wade, a 6-3 forward; Paul Kopeck, a 6-0 forward; Mike Kopacz, a 5-10 guard; and John Knigge, a 5-8 guard.
The Dukes' strategy consisted of running, running and running some more, despite head coach Dick Franklin sticking with his starters most of the game. Ron Koesler was the sixth man, and came in if a starter got in foul trouble.
"We ran after made baskets, missed baskets, free throws, inbounds plays – everything," Wade said. "I don't think we were as talented as some teams we played, but we just wore people out. We were in a lot of close games, and we won them in the fourth quarter."
"Our team was small in size compared to a lot of teams," Knigge said, "so we had to make up for it different ways."
After a 3-0 start, Dixon got a bit of a reality check with a trip north to face Rockford West. The Warriors featured 6-8 all-state forward Cal Glover and future Northwestern guard Mark Sibley.
"We were totally intimidated," Wade said of a 92-67 loss.
The Dukes didn't face such difficulties over the next few months, when they ran off a 22-game winning streak, including a confidence-building championship at the Rockford Holiday Tournament.
Dixon opened the tourney with a 67-52 decision over a Chicago Harlan team that featured Cliff Meely, who played at Colorado and was the No. 7 pick in the 1971 NBA Draft.
"Everybody was shocked we won that game," Branson said.
The Dukes claimed the championship with a 59-55 win over Spaulding, Peoria's best team that season.
"That was a measuring stick," Knigge said of the tourney. "Chicago Harlan was probably the biggest one, because I think they were ranked pretty high in state at the time. Peoria Spaulding also had a very good team."
Three games after the holidays, the Dukes won a 63-57 decision over a strong Rock Falls team led by Mike Berentes and Ken Scott. They played without Kopeck, who had sprained an ankle playing volleyball in P.E.
"The great thing is we never had to take P.E. again for the rest of the year," Branson said.
The wins kept coming as the season wore down. There was a 52-51 decision over Rockford Guilford in which the Dukes trailed by 15 at halftime, and a second win against Rock Falls, 69-65.
Wade clinched Dixon's last conference game, a 54-53 win at Streator, with a turnaround jumper with 5 seconds remaining. The Bulldogs featured Doug Dieken, who would play football at Illinois and for the Cleveland Browns.
At the conclusion of the regular season, the Dukes were 22-1, ranked 14th by the Associated Press, and the team to beat in the Sterling Regional.
After a 92-64 win over Mount Morris, Dixon earned a 69-58 win against Sterling – the third time the Dukes beat the Golden Warriors that season.
In the regional final, the Dukes earned what would be the last of their 22 straight wins: A 71-41 decision over Rock Falls, their third victory against the Rockets.
"I can remember walking into the Sterling gym and there were guys out front taking bets on the game," Branson said. "We beat them by 30. It was so bad I played in that game."
The regional title advanced the Dukes to the sectional, where they once again ran into Rockford West at Chick Evans Fieldhouse in DeKalb. Dixon was more competitive this time, but fell behind early and lost 72-60.
Franklin altered his team's playing style, but it didn't work.
"We tried to slow the ball down," Knigge said, "and we just weren't used to playing that kind of a game. At the end we opened it up and made it respectable."
"To this day, I don't know why we played that way," said Wade, who joined 1966 Dixon grad Ken Haynes on the team at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. "We slowed it down, got way behind, then went back to the way were used to playing. We got it back to four or five points, then we ran out of gas.
"Their inside-outside game was just too much for us to handle."
1967 Dukes
Record: 25-2
Conference: 11-0 NCIC champions
Postseason: Won Sterling Regional, fell to Rockford West at DeKalb Sectional
Starting 5: Rusty Cooper, John Knigge, Mike Kopacz, Paul Kopeck, Steve Wade
FYI: Defeated Sterling, Rock Falls 3 times apiece. ... Won 22 straight games. ... Defeated Chicago Harlan, Peoria Spaulding at Rockford Holiday Tournament.