When Sycamore girls basketball coach Adam Wickness and his players were discussing preseason goals, the most common answer he heard was to improve on last year’s eight-win season, the fewest wins in a season for the program since 2007-2008.

Wickness said he told the girls to aim higher.

“I think after our season last year it wasn’t just all be a little bit better,” senior Grace Amptmann said after the Spartans beat Ottawa 51-42 on Friday and won the Interstate 8 title. “I think we set our goals really high at the beginning of the season and ... I think we’re doing good on reaching them all.”

Over eight days, the Spartans checked a lot of boxes. It started with a 38-25 win against DeKalb on Jan. 30, reclaiming the traveling trophy from their rivals. They had won 10 in a row before last year’s loss.

On Wednesday, they won 48-35 at Kaneland to end a four-game losing streak to their conference rivals and put themselves in position to win the Interstate 8 Conference.

Then they finished the season sweep of Ottawa on Friday to clinch the I-8 title. They had won seven in a row before the Knights won the crown last year.

On Saturday, they reached win No. 20 for the season against Belvidere. Only twice in 10 years under Wickness have they failed to reach 20 wins – last season, and when they went 17-2 in the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season.

“It feels really good to get our spark back and our confidence back,” Amptmann said. “I think a lot of that dropped last year, but I think it’s good for everyone to have the confidence back.”

Kaneland shows off its defense in second half against Sycamore

The Sycamore boys scored 45 points in the first half against Kaneland on Saturday and seemed poised to hand the Knights their first loss of the year.

Kaneland can certainly score points in bunches as one of the top-scoring offenses in Class 3A. But their defense is what made the difference in the 73-68 overtime win.

The Spartans were shooting 53% from the floor in the first half and were coming off a 26-point second quarter. They scored 23 points for the rest of Saturday’s game.

“Part of it is most teams are not going to stay that hot for four quarters,” Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said. “We’re a good defensive team, and we felt like we gave up too many open looks. Credit to them, they created open looks, got us in some rotations. We just had to clean that up. And once we did, we made it a little tougher on them.”

The Knights really locked in on Sycamore leading scorer Isaiah Feuerbach, who drained three 3-pointers at the end of the second quarter and had 18 points in the first half. After shooting 7 for 10 in the first half, he scored just one point in the second half and missed all six of his field goal attempts.

“He was on fire, so we decided to face-guard him in the second half and make sure we get back to pressure more,” Kaneland senior guard Marshawn Cocroft said. “That led to more turnovers in the second half.”

Indian Creek claims third Little 10 Tournament title

In the lowest-scoring title game since 1947, Indian Creek beat IMSA 40-29 for its third LTC Tournament title, all since 2020.

“This is awesome,” said Cooper Rissman, who had seven points, four rebounds, three steals and four assists. “This was one of our team goals, and we reached it. It wasn’t pretty, but we were able to stick together and get it done.”

The Timberwolves lost last year’s title game to Hinckley-Big Rock, but beat the Royals in the semifinals.

NIU stays strong this year in final MAC-Sun Belt Challenge

Instead of the Horizon League next year, NIU should maybe look into the Sun Belt.

Both the men’s and women’s teams picked up last-minute, thrilling victories in their final MAC-Sun Belt Challenge on Saturday. The women won 71-69 against Texas State at home, and the men won 75-74 at Georgia State in Atlanta.

For the women, Nevaeh Wingate made a layup on a feed from Maria Serracanta at the buzzer after the Bobcats (10-13) turned it over with 0:02 left.

The Huskies (5-18) trailed 69-66, but Emilie Sorenson hit a 3-pointer with 1:16 remaining to tie the game on an assist from Wingate.

For the men, Makhai Valentine’s 3-pointer with 1:19 left gave the Huskies (8-14) the lead for good in the road victory.

Valentine scored a game-high 23 points, shot 7 of 9 from the floor and 5 of 6 from 3-point range. He added six rebounds.

Other top performances

A total of 15 wrestlers from DeKalb, Sycamore, Kaneland and Genoa-Kingston will be heading to the DeKalb Sectional on Friday and Saturday, looking to punch their ticket to state. DeKalb won the Belvidere Regional behind championship performances from Alex Gregorio-Perez and Aarianna Bloyd. Kaneland’s Angelina Gochis and Sycamore’s Ema Durst also won titles. Kaitlynn Doerner won the Sycamore Regional with a 1,342, helping Sycamore’s bowling team take second and qualify for the sectional as a team. DeKalb qualified Addisyn Borota, Brenda Cuevas and Elena Shaw. Ally Keilman scored 23 for Indian Creek in a win over Hiawatha on Saturday.

• Brian Hoxsey contributed to this report. For more on these games, go to daily-chronicle.com.