The last two seasons, the La Salle-Peru boys basketball team peaked at the right time and won back-to-back regional championships.

Third-year coach John Senica knows it won’t be easy to make it a three-peat.

“It’s very difficult to get into position to have an opportunity to win one, let alone make it twice and win it,” Senica said. “We’ve been very blessed. The ball’s bounced the right way. For us to get there again will be a difficult task. The kids really have to play hard, and everything has to fall into place.”

Everything fell into place the last two seasons.

The Cavaliers were the No. 5 seed each of the last two years, upsetting No. 3 Dixon in the semifinals and No. 2 Streator in the regional championship last year and knocking off No. 3 Dixon and No. 2 Sterling in 2023.

“Our goal is to be competitive and get better each game, build and learn from our mistakes so we can be ready for the postseason,” Senica said.

L-P, which went 15-19 last year, has a strong core to build around this season with NewsTribune All-Area first-team pick Marion Persich, a sophomore, returning along with seniors Erick Sotelo and Jameson Hill. Seniors Braylin Bond and Wyatt Kilday also saw time last season.

“They gained a lot of experience, especially Erick. This will be his third year on varsity,” Senica said. “I’m expecting them to all step up and really be contributors this year.”

Senior Regan Doerr, juniors Mason Morscheiser, Kyle Spelich, John Sowers, Joey Gallicchio, Jake Hall and Victor Garcia and freshman Gavin Stokes are newcomers to the roster who Senica expects to contribute. Junior Jaron Morscheiser is also a newcomer but will miss the first part of the season with an injury.

“I think we’re going to have a little more depth this year,” Senica said.

Senica expects the Cavaliers to have a balanced offensive attack.

Persich led the team in scoring last season at 13.1 points per game while also averaging 2.4 assists per game, while Sotelo added 8.5 points and 1.9 assists per game.

“The way the offense is set up, it could be anybody at any given time,” Senica said. “We could have two or three in double figures. We’re not going to rely on one person. We have eight or nine players who could lead us in scoring.”

The Cavs look to be strong on defense to help kickstart their offense.

“We pride ourselves on defense,” Senica said. “I hope everybody can pick up everything we want to do on defense, and we can be competitive because that usually helps our offense. We get our offense going off our defense.”