Hononegah basketball hopes injury and illness jinx ends in time for postseason run
ROCKTON — “I feel,” Hononegah center Dominic Commisso said, “if we’re at our full potential, we’ll do well.”
But Hononegah never seems to be at full strength. And it certainly didn’t do well against No. 6-ranked Normal Community, losing 70-32 in the final game of Hononegah’s annual MLK boys basketball tournament Saturday night.
Hononegah played without 6-6 junior forwards Brandon Beck and Adam Steege. Beck, whom Hononegah coach Mike Miller called “the best shooter in the area,” recently had his cast taken off after breaking an ankle, and Steege was being tested for COVID. Roughly half the team missed practice all week, including the 6-9 Commisso.
Hononegah (10-7 after losing both its MLK games Saturday) has been rocked by losing key players on a regular basis in recent years, but nothing like this year.
“We have had one of our better players lose time six of the last seven years,” Miller said. “Somebody has a voodoo doll against us somewhere.”
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With veteran guard Owen Hart, who led Hono with eight points against Normal Community, and five players between 6-5 and 6-9, this was supposed to be the year Hononegah could contend for a NIC-10 title. It hasn’t gone that way. Especially Saturday.
“We’re struggling to change everything every week,” said Braydon Savitski-Lynde, another 6-6 junior forward. “I want to see what we’re like when we’re 100 percent, but we’ve never been. Hopefully soon. That will be different also because we will be changing everything again and getting people back who haven’t been on the court. But once we get everyone back and working for a week or two, we will be a lot better.
“But you still have to take things away from this game. It shows where we stand when we don’t execute and put all our effort into a game.”
Normal Community (21-1) led 7-5 halfway through the first quarter, then went on a 29-7 run to blow the game open. The Ironmen also opened the second half with a 12-0 run to take a 31-point lead, 48-17.
The Ironmen shot 67 percent (29-for-43), including 7-for-12 on 3-pointers. Six Ironmen scored between eight and 10 points, including three players who are either 6-7 or 6-8. Two of those are Zach and Noah Cleveland, whose mom (Marla Maupin-Cleveland) was an all-American at Illinois State. Their sister, Grace, was an All-American volleyball player at Purdue.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” Savitski-Lynde said of Normal Community’s deep, tall and talented lineup.
“That team is better than we are,” coach Miller said, “but here is the thing: We can compete. We can be in the right spot. If we’re in the right spot and some guy jumps over us and dunks, good for them. But if we are not in the right spot, then it’s something that has to be addressed.”
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Some of that was just how good Normal Community was. The Ironmen made nine of their first 10 shots to start the second half.
“They couldn’t miss,” Commisso said. “They did not miss. They were hitting all of their shots. They are tall and they were driving, getting it in the middle, kicking it out and just nailing everything.”
Hononegah players say they didn’t make things hard enough on the Ironmen.
“You have to take things away from this game,” Savitski-Lynde said. “It shows where we stand when we don’t execute and put all our effort into a game.”
But Hononegah, which also lost 47-37 to Normal West on Saturday, still thinks that would could have been this season might still be.
“We have no excuses,” Commisso said. “I know we have had a lot of guys with sickness and a lot of guys hurt but we should have done a lot better. That was a rough one.
“But I still feel if we had all of our guys we could be doing really well. Hopefully, we will get them all back by the end of the season and we can make a run in regionals and sectionals.”
Matt Trowbridge: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Hononegah boys basketball struggling with injuries and illness
