Boys basketball notes: Johnsburg’s Mike Toussaint picks up win No. 400

Johnsburg boys basketball coach Mike Toussaint mentioned the milestone he was approaching to his wife Cindy a couple weeks ago.

Toussaint was closing in on 400 career wins between the two programs, but he told Cindy not to tell anyone, wanting to focus more on the team and trying to win the Kishwaukee River Conference title.

“She told everybody,” Toussaint said.

The timing seemed ideal Tuesday night as the Skyhawks celebrated senior night with a 63-52 KRC win over Woodstock for Toussaint’s 400th victory. The triumph also gave Johnsburg the upper hand in the KRC.

“It’s awesome,” Toussaint said of the 400th. “It just means I’m old.”

It also means that Toussaint, who graduated from Johnsburg in 1986 and played at Elmhurt College, will eventually be headed to the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The 400 varsity wins makes a coach a lock for the Hall.

Toussaint had an incredible run with the Skyhawks girls teams with eight 20-win seasons, no losing seasons and a string of seven consecutive Class AA or 3A regional titles.

Johnsburg won Class 3A sectional championships in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and had five Northwest Herald Players of the Year in six years: Paige Fiedorowicz (2006, 2007), Michelle McDonald (2008) and Melissa Dixon (2010, 2011).

“At the beginning of the season, I was looking at records and wondered where I was at,” Toussaint said. “I hadn’t even thought about it.”

Toussaint was 246-97 in 11 seasons with the girls and 140-171 in 11 seasons with the boys, leaving him 14 wins shy of 400 with a team well-equipped to get him past that point.

Senior Dylan Schmidt is a fourth-year varsity player, while Jacob Welch, Ian Boal and Jake Metze all are third-year varsity players.

“It’s awesome. That’s a huge accomplishment, not many coaches get that and it lined up with senior night too,” said Schmidt, who led the Skyhawks with 26 points and 16 rebounds Tuesday. “It makes it an even bigger night.”

Johnsburg (14-12, 6-1) finishes with hosting Marengo (0-25, 0-6) on Saturday, then with road games at Woodstock North (11-13, 5-1) and Richmond-Burton (6-17, 3-3).

“We just have to win out and we’ll win conference,” Welch said. “This was the first step to it and now we have to worry about Marengo on Saturday. That’s the next step.”

If the Skyhawks win out, it will be their first boys conference championship under Toussaint.

“We only have three games left, and we had good games against all three of those teams last time,” Schmidt said. “We just have to put it together and finish it out.”

Schmidt close to decision: Schmidt, a 6-foot-3 forward, can do it all, scoring inside and hitting 3-pointers, as well as rebounding.

Toussaint thinks more NCAA Division II schools [which can offer athletic scholarships] should be looking a Schmidt, who passed 1,000 career points early in the season and averages 20.7 points and 8.3 rebounds a game.

Aurora had a coach at the game Tuesday. Illinois Wesleyan, Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Wisconsin-Platteville are the other D-III teams recruiting Schmidt hard.

“It depends on how the financial stuff plays out,” Schmidt said. “I hope in the next couple weeks here.”

Crazy night in FVC: The Fox Valley Conference co-leaders were initially displeased with their results Tuesday, then a little less displeased.

Burlington Central (21-5, 11-2) lost to Prairie Ridge 70-61 for its first conference loss since early December. Huntley (19-6, 11-2) fell to Hampshire 39-36, so neither of the two lost any ground.

Those two teams do not play again until the final regular-season game Feb. 17 in Huntley.

With Central and Huntley both having five-game winning streaks stopped, the longest current winning streaks among area teams are Prairie Ridge and Hampshire, each at three.

Looking up: Woodstock (9-14, 5-3) started its KRC season at 4-0 and the loss to Johnsburg on Tuesday all but knocked the Blue Streaks out of the conference race.

But the program took a positive step with first-year coach Ryan Starnes and has a lot coming back next season. The Streaks’ best player, 6-6 junior Spencer Cullum (16.2 ppg., 7.2 rpg., 38 3s) is back with three other key contributors.

Keaton Perkins (5.9 ppg.), Sam Chapman (5.9 ppg) and 6-6 Trent Butler also are juniors.

“The kids have earned the right to be in this spot,” Starnes said. “They’ve bought in to what we’re trying to do. The competitiveness has come so far from where we were this summer. We were getting beat pretty good this summer. They’re really brought in to what we’re preaching.

“We’re going through a little bit of a rough stretch right now, especially offensively. We have to keep grinding away.”

Join the club: Burlington Central forward Drew Scharnowski passed 1,000 career points in Friday’s 70-55 win over Crystal Lake Central.

Scharnowski, Johnsburg’s Schmidt, Marian Central’s Christian Bentancur and Crystal Lake South’s Cooper LePage all have passed 1,000 points this season.