After winningest season in two decades, Hiawatha boys working hard to continue improving image

KIRKLAND – A 10-win basketball season indicates that a team still has a lot of work to do.

It’s no exception for Hiawatha, coming off a 10-18 campaign last season. But it’s also a little different for the Hawks, who reached double-digit wins for the first time since 2003-04.

Now the Hawks are trying to change how other teams look at the program.

“It means a lot trying to get rid of the image of us being a lesser team,” said rising senior Aidan Cooper, who averaged 17.1 points and 12 rebounds per game last year. “We like going against bigger schools. We competed a lot better in games last year.”

They started in that direction last year not just with the 10 wins, but some big road wins late in the year on other teams’ senior nights. They beat Harvest Christian (13-20) and Ashton-Franklin Center (7-25) on their respective senior nights.

Matthew Montavon, a DeKalb grad in his third season coaching the Hawks, said he sees in the team a squad that really wants to change the narrative and is working hard to do so.

“If I tell them something, they’ll go do it but five times harder,” Montavon said. “I think they’re done being disrespected. ... Everybody’s disrespecting Hiawatha – ‘Oh, it’s an easy win.’ A couple teams did that, we went into their place in a rough environment and won. This team wants to get to 15 wins. Before this team, you didn’t hear guys chatter and say we can get better. Now they’re a team-oriented group and they want to get that extra work in together.”

The Hawks went from seven wins in Montavon’s first season to 10 last season, and that was with losing nine seniors from the 2022-23 model. This season, they only lose Thomas Geibel as they return nearly the entirety of the roster.

Cooper is at the forefront of the returners, having recorded 20 points and 20 rebounds in a game four times last year.

“He’s always the first one in, last one out,” Montavon said. “If you watch him play, the ball just finds him. Even if he’s getting boxed out, the ball always finds him. He had four or five games of 20 points and 20 rebounds, which is almost unheard of for a high schooler.”

Junior Jayden Gray also returns, a 6-foot-7 rising junior who averaged 10 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks per game. Colby Wylde also is back. Montavon called the rising sophomore a high-energy bench player who could find his way into the starting lineup.

Montavon said he was also impressed with how point guard Jackson Davenport improved as the year went on, peaking in the Hawks’ playoff loss to Amboy with a career-best 18 points.

“I think we can be really competitive with all the other teams we play,” said Davenport, a rising junior. “We have a similar core to last year, so we can build off that and hopefully win more games.”

Montavon said Isaac Ramangkoun has developed into a lockdown defender.

Summer workouts may start getting tricky for the Hawks as the gym at the high school will undergo renovations. Montavon said it’s part of a series of fixes that includes new scoreboards and a new floor in the locker rooms.

He said he still expects his players to put in the work wherever and however they can.

“They really put the work in last year in the summer and in the fall,” Montavon said. “When the season came around they were ready to go. We can be a good team as we saw. At first we were losing close games but halfway through the season everything clicked for us with all these freshmen and sophomores.”

Anything in service of changing the program’s reputation.

“It feels good to prove them wrong,” Davenport said, “to show them we are not what we used to be.”