Minooka trying to continue its upward progression

From a distance, it looks as if the Minooka boys basketball team’s summer jerseys have their names on the back of them.

That isn’t a common practice, and upon closer inspection during the Morris Shootout, it isn’t names on the backs of those jerseys, it is a series of words the Indians hope to employ in the upcoming season.

The Indians made substantial progress in that quest in the short 2021 season after struggling mightily in the last full season in 2019-20 where they compiled a 3-28 record.

Minooka showed rapid signs of improvement in the abbreviated spring season, finishing 8-5, and was right in the thick of the regular season Southwest Prairie Conference race, which ultimately was won by Joliet West.

“We’ve got some juniors that are becoming seniors for us that got quality minutes for us and competed at a high level, and we’re counting on those guys to really continue the program in the direction that we did last year,” Minooka coach Kevin Cain said. “Hoping that the seniors can keep things on the path that we started last year.”

And now Cain and his coaching staff are getting more opportunity to blend in the underclassmen into the varsity mix, a luxury that wasn’t really afforded in last season’s limited opportunities for full program interaction.

“It’s been good for the kids that were sophomores, now juniors, that we’re really getting the opportunity to teach,” Cain said. “We didn’t really get the opportunity to do a lot of that because of potential COVID contact. It was very minimal last year that I would be with that group. But normally, and now in summer, we’re all together. And its good that we’re getting that continuity back in our program.”

It’s still been relatively rare that Minooka has had its full arsenal of athletes and Morris was no different, but the absences for other athletic accomplishments are easy to forgive and support.

“It’s been a schedule conflicted with kids coming back from track [Minooka just finished second as a team in the Class 3A state meet last weekend], and football camp was this week,” Cain said. “We’re trying to make sure those guys get proper breaks, but still grow the program, is our ultimate direction.”

Seasoned veterans

Lockport was another program that took a dramatic step forward last season, and the Porters seemed to be playing in a manner in which they don’t expect to take a step back.

The Porters swept three pool games Wednesday at the Morris Shootout before losing in the opening round of the Gold Tournament [a 16-team bracket of teams that finished either first or second in pool play, that would determine the tournament’s champion] to Normal Community West.

Lockport did lose some significant scoring punch to graduation, but more often than not the Porters preferred to play a game that wasn’t highly reliant on one person to shoulder the scoring load.

That sort of all-for-one mentality was apparent in Lockport’s play at Morris, where the Porters were constantly active on defense and got scoring contributions from almost everyone on the roster.

“Some of that is just continuity in our system. We haven’t really changed much in a couple of years, and the kids are comfortable,” Lockport coach Brett Hespell said. “But it’s also that we have like 11 or 12 quality players, and a lot of them have a chance to play beyond high school. We can take one out and put another one in, and its kind of the same no matter which guys are out there.

“It definitely feels more normal, and it’s nice to have these days to build these relationships a little bit stronger.”

Results

Bolingbrook was the only local team to make a deep run in the Gold Tournament, which featured first- and second-place finishers from Wednesday’s pool play. The Raiders won two games Thursday before losing a game to Dundee-Crown in the semifinals.

Minooka bounced back from a 1-2 showing in pool play to win all four of its games Thursday, winning the Maroon Tournament, which was made up of teams that finished third and fourth in Wednesday’s pool play. Plainfield Central lost its first game of the day in the Maroon Tournament but then rattled off three straight wins to win the consolation bracket in that tournament.