Logan Hodges used last summer to figure out he was going to be a defensive guy for the Sycamore boys basketball team.

And by the time the end of the season rolled around, he had cracked his way into the rotation of the most successful Spartans team in a very long time.

“I think the summer is very important because this is where you can, like, obviously you can’t do whatever you want,” Hodges said. “But you can experiment. And everyone’s going to play and you’ve got to be mindful of that. But you can see what role you fit in and that’s what I did last year.”

This year, with only Hodges and Xander Lewis back from last year’s regional champion club that went 27-6, the most wins since a 30-win team in the 1932-1933 win, the senior guard Hodges said he’s using the summer the same way. Except this time he’s figured out he’s going to be needed for a lot more than defense.

From what he’s seen on the court this year, he said he’s going to need to be a Top 3 scorer, fierce on the boards and the team’s second-best defender behind Lewis.

And most important, he’s going to have to become a team leader alongside Lewis.

“I was a little nervous at first but once you get the hang of it, gets easier,” Hodges said. “Obviously our team was really good last year and there were a lot of leaders to help me and put me in the position I was supposed to be in I just hope this year I can do that for the younger guys.”

Ethan Franklin, starting his fifth season as the Spartans’ head coach, said that leadership element will be crucial for both Hodges and Lewis.

Lewis said his expanded leadership role, along with an increased scoring load on offense, is his main summer focus. He was the third-leading scorer at 12 points per game last year behind all-state players Isaiah Feuerbach (18.5) and Marcus Johnson (17).

“It’s really just stepping into a leadership role and showing them how it is as a varsity player,” Lewis said. “And really just being able to be that focal point of the team.”

Lewis said it’s been important for the whole team to get experience this summer to develop chemistry. He’s the only returning starter back from last year on a team that’s been trending upward for four years under Franklin.

The Spartans went 11-20 in the 2022-23 season under Franklin, then 13-19 the following year. They went 24-9 and won a regional championship in 2024-25, their first since 2017.

Last season’s regional title gave the Spartans back-to-back regional titles for the first time since 2013 and 2014. The win total was the most since 1932.

The Spartans lost a sectional semifinal to Crystal Lake South for the second straight year, denying them a third matchup with Interstate 8 rival Kaneland.

“That’s the ultimate goal is to bring back another regional and hope to get a sectional championship,” Lewis said. “That’s our goal. But we’ve got to work for it. Starts here.”

Franklin said shot selection is key for Lewis. He can’t force up shots against bigger players.

Hodges, Franklin said, kept getting better as the season went on. He expects Hodges will keep doing all the glue guy things that made him so invaluable during the season, just on a larger scale.

Franklin said that’s what he’s seen out of Hodges so far this summer and Lewis agreed.

“At the end of the season he was stepping into more of a starting role,” Lewis said. “Going into the summer it’s just us two leading our team in the games and being able to help our team to win.”

Hodges said he hopes to see more energy and depth off the bench than last year. The Spartans often went no more than seven players deep in games.

But he said what he’s seen during the summer has gone very well so far and he’s hopeful that the Spartans can hoist a third straight regional banner and challenge Kaneland for an Interstate 8 title, something no one has done since 2021-22.

“Obviously we hope to put another banner on the wall and go farther than we did last year,” Hodges said. “But I feel it’s important we focus on winning conference for the first time in a while. And yeah, the ultimate goal is a regional championship.”