Last winter’s Streator Bulldogs boys basketball team posted a 24-9 record, won the Illinois Central Eight Conference championship outright and held a late lead in a Class 3A regional championship game. It was also an almost entirely senior group that accomplished those things on the court come gamedays.

This season the Bulldogs are reloading with a handful of young men who played secondary or tertiary roles on that team bolstered by a large junior group that won 20 games itself at the JV level in 2024-25.

It’s their time now.

“We’ve had two really, really deep and talented senior classes two years in a row that achieved a lot, won 47 games the last two years,” said Beau Doty, Streator’s 17th-year coach who with 261 wins is second in terms of career wins at the school behind only the man the gym is named for, Lowell “Pops” Dale.

“This year, it’s going to be a green group to start out with in terms of varsity experience, but we do have probably more kids this year on the varsity roster who have participated on travel basketball, AAU on their own than any group I can remember. So we have a dedicated group.”

That dedication of the three-senior, seven-junior and one-sophomore opening day varsity roster has shown in the preseason.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever had this many floorburns the first few days,” Doty said. “These kids are really playing hard and competing. They’re hitting the floor for loose balls, you’ve got two, three bodies diving. We haven’t had to crank up the energy ever. They’re bringing it every single day.

“Now it’s just a matter of execution and the details and those little things you need to win at the varsity level.”

While the junior class is more abundant, the Bulldogs’ three seniors are leading the way. That includes 5-9 guard LA Moton and 6-3 wing Riley Stevens, who both saw limited but meaningful time last season, as well as 6-5 post Joe Hoekstra, who is the lone returning main-rotation player after spotting graduated Times All-Area first-team performer/double-double machine Nolan Lukach in 2024-25.

All three should see their roles and minutes increase, with Stevens a strong candidate for a breakout campaign after injuries reduced his role junior year.

“Riley’s a terrific athlete and a three-sport guy who’s had a lot of success in track and football. We’re just waiting for him to break out in basketball,” Doty said. “We had high expectations for him last year as a junior with a pretty senior-laden group. His injuries curtailed that ... but he was really good for us in the minutes he was able to give us.”

While senior leadership and all that comes with it is obviously a large piece of the expectations on Moton, Hoekstra and Stevens, Doty is looking for more – namely meaningful, measurable, on-the-court output.

“First of all, you’ve got to have production,” he said. “You can talk about all the intangible sides – the leadership, bringing it every single day, the energy, all those lofty words all programs want – but at the end of the day, we need execution and production out of them, and we’re going to need it at a high level. We’ve got a lot to replace in terms of filling up stat sheets with points and rebounds.

“We’ve got juniors and one sophomore on the roster who we obviously think can supplement that as well, but [the seniors] are going to have to go out there and do it in efficient ways and do it every night.”

Alongside those seniors will be the aforementioned seven juniors – 6-1 swingmen Colin Byers and Sharonn Morton, 6-3 post Brennen Stillwell, 5-10 guards Jack Studnicki and Kamdyn Darrow, 5-11 wing T.J. Horton and 5-11 guard Sam LeRette – as well as 6-1 sophomore guard Christian Bruton, a candidate in the Bulldogs’ open point guard competition.

Streator opens Monday in Ottawa’s Dean Riley “Shootin’ the Rock” against the team that ended their season last winter, La Salle-Peru.

“There’s nothing easy on our schedule at all,” Doty said. “We’re going to have to bring it right out of the gate in the Ottawa tournament.”