How a Peorian's ties to Winnebago help set up this 'heavyweight' girls hoops matchup

Layne Langholf’s last game for Winnebago quickly became a Rockford legend.

Winnebago was undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the state in 1992, when Langholf was a senior point guard — decades before he became girls basketball coach at Peoria Notre Dame.

Winnebago played No. 5 Rockford Lutheran — which had been No. 1 most of the year — in a sold-out 1992 Class A regional final at Stillman Valley. Two fans were caught trying to get in with counterfeit tickets. Closed circuit TV was set up for 100 others to watch in the lobby.

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The jam-packed crowd overheated the gym so much that a cheerleader opened a door to let in some cool air. That created more problems.

“I turned around after a timeout late in the fourth quarter and there was a fog across the middle of the gym floor,” said Joe Murphy, who has coached Winnebago’s boys team for 35 years.

The fog then turned to ice in overtime. Three players and one ref slipped and fell — “His feet flew above his head,” Murphy recalled — in a game Lutheran won 70-69 in overtime.

Murphy has more than 700 career wins and five top-four state trophies, but he says that was his best team ever. Langholf missed a running 12-footer at the buzzer that could have won it, but he never had much of a chance because he couldn’t stop and plant his feet. Or even slow down. “I missed the biggest shot in Winnebago history,” Langholf said.

And now he will try to interrupt the best girls basketball season in Winnebago history.

Langholf returned home Saturday as the coach of Peoria Notre Dame (14-1), ranked No. 6 in Class 3A. The Irish played at Winnebago (20-0), the unanimous No. 1 team in Class 2A in a game scheduled at the last minute after Notre Dame lost six games from its schedule for COVID reasons.

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When Winnebago heard their interest, AD Will Hartje talked to Richmond-Burton, which agreed to cancel the game it had scheduled to play Winnebago.

Which sets up the biggest nonconference girls game in the Rockford region since Byron lost 56-52 to nationally ranked Lombard Montini in 2017 — the year Byron won its second consecutive Class 2A state title.

“It’s definitely a heavyweight matchup,” Hartje said. “It’s a cool scenario to get lined up. I’m hoping with a former player and a top-tier program like Peoria Notre Dame coming to town, it will draw not just the Winnebago community but basketball fans from around the area.”

Langholf has maintained his Winnebago ties.

“He always opens up Peoria Notre Dame’s gym for us to get a couple of practices in when we make it downstate,” Hartje said. “He’s a good old Winnebago boy at heart.”

“To get a chance to play a great team and have that be your alma mater is pretty special,” Langholf said. “I am excited for our kids to come up and see the place that made so many great memories for me. None of them could probably find Winnebago on the map right now. I want them to see the gym where I played.

“We will probably swing by my mom’s house and show them the old neighborhood. We will tour with the bus, but it’s Winnebago: The tour is not going to take very long.”

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His players will also surely meet Murphy, a friend so close that he paid Langholf’s college tuition.

“We paid him back, but we didn’t have to pay student loans,” said Langholf, who named his oldest of three sons — Dylan Murphy Langholf — in part after his old coach. “As good of a coach as he is, he is a better person. His players were like his kids. The relationship I had with him is the reason I got into coaching.”

“We talk all the time,” Murphy said. “I’ve had a lot of players like him that come back all the time and talk. That team was real close. All the teams that are very successful, they seem to have that in common. They get really close and do a lot of things together.”

Langholf’s mom has even stronger ties to Winnebago High than he does, working as the school’s athletic secretary for 30 years.

“The Langholf name is pretty big in the Winnebago area,” Winnebago girls coach Judy Krause said.

The big names for Winnebago and Peoria Notre Dame are similar. Miyah Brown is a senior forward/guard who has signed with NCAA Division I Bellarmine and last year became the only first-team Associated Press All-Stater in school history. Notre Dame is led by sophomore guard Mya Wardle, the daughter of Bradley coach Brian Wardle, who already has three Division I offers.

“They play a style very similar to us,” Krause said. “We have to be ready for their aggressiveness and just keep a cool head.”

Winnebago has great balance around Brown. Renee Rittmeyer, who is a four-year starter, Campbell Schrank, Annika Bielskis, Ella Provi, Jocelyn Harms and Sarah Seger have all had double-digit scoring games for a team that is winning by an average of more than 30 points and had only two wins closer than 12. Those two rare close games were against Palatine Fremd and Rolling Meadows, who are four times larger than Winnebago (451 students) and have a cumulative 27-12 record.

Notre Dame has a pair of one-point wins but has already played four games against teams that were state-ranked at the time, beating Normal Community and Metamora and splitting two games with Peoria High.

Langholf was glad to see Winnebago win by 14 points Tuesday at Dixon, which came in 19-3. The bigger Saturday’s game is, the better he says.

“I don’t want to go up there when they are 19-1; I want to go up there when they are 20-0,” Langholf said. “Our kids love to compete.”

Matt Trowbridge: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Notre Dame-Winnebago state-ranked girls clash is coach's homecoming