In every athlete’s life there are games that we hold on to, we play until our body’s can not give us more. For the McHenry boys basketball team, their time is now. This year is the first time since 1976 that MCHS has moved on to the sectionals — and head coach Corky Card earned his 300th win.
With the sectionals final right around the corner, energy is high and the team has been better than ever.
“You know, it’s a live or die moment,” said varsity player Marko Stojich. “You know, we lose, we’re done. Right? You know, we gotta give it our all. There’s definitely some nerves involved. This is our first time as a team going to sectionals but as long as you stay connected, I feel like we’ll do pretty good.”
With a brand new coach taking us to sectionals everyone has been talking about what has been done differently this year.
“I would say it’s coincidence,” said head coach Card. “Other than the fact that everything was lined up, right. I mean, the first thing you have to have is players. These kids all grew up playing with each other. And now I’d be quite honest with you Coach Madson, who’s now the athletic director and Coach Niemic who was the assistant, last year they had a really good second half of the year and then everything was set up to come on here. So I definitely believed they’re gonna have a successful year no matter who the coach was.”
Some players talked about how they just needed a little more pushing to get to where they are now.
“I think he definitely pushes us a lot harder,” said junior Dylan Hurckes. “He coaches us in a different way, which could definitely help us. I think he definitely helped us get a lot better this season.”
The difference from this year and last year is their new press tactics.
“We were in a zone last year like we are this year,” said junior Caleb Jett. “But this year, it’s more of a press and we press the whole game and our defense kind of correlates into our offense. So that definitely helps putting up points and stuff.”
Coming up to the sectionals finals the team seems to be more confident than ever.
“There’s definitely some good teams coming up in the sectional championship,” said Jett. “I think there isn’t a team that we can’t play with. I think we’re all pretty confident that we can win. We’ve been playing good for the past few games so I think if we just keep doing what we’re doing we can beat anyone.”
Just as importantly, Coach Card does not seem afraid of anyone who steps foot on the courts.
“We played Phillips out in Chicago on the road and beat them by 13,” said Card. “So our schedule has been good. We’ve had several things where we come from behind to win games. We’ve had some things where we had to play well in the end to win things so now I’m not afraid of anyone in front of us.”
On Friday, March 1, the varsity team will be playing the sectional finals. Athletic director Chris Madson, ordered fan buses to support the varsity team that students are encouraged to utilize in order to get a larger fan base attending the game.