PREVIEW: Boys Basketball shoots for 11th straight title

Coming off of a 23-6 campaign and their second straight regional championship, the Boy’s varsity basketball team has extremely high expectations and is the odds on favorite to win their 11^th straight Conference title.

 Tom McCloskey returns for his 16^th season as the head coach of the boys’ varsity squad, looking to continue an excellent tradition of winning at the school. As the head coach of RB, McCloskey has won 70% of his games overall, with a winning percentage of 89% in conference games. McCloskey looks to add to this mark this upcoming season.

The team will take a big hit with the losses of former center Alex Dziagwa, and guard Ryan Jackson who averaged 25.2 points a game. Both are playing college basketball this year, at Augustana and Lewis University respectively. Senior forwards Chris Duplancich and Louis Marino will be expected to make the jump into the starting lineup and contribute in a big way.

Also, a strong junior class, who won the conference title as sophomores, will be expected to emerge as key contributors on the bench. One such contributor, 5’11’’ guard Hunter Claire, will add a needed toughness and grittiness on defense. Claire will look to improve on a strong sophomore campaign and carry that success to the varsity level.

“I really want to improve my shooting, get my three to fall on a consistent basis, and be able to handle pressure when dribbling the ball,” said Claire.

The biggest question mark coming into the season is who will take on the bulk of the scoring now that Jackson has graduated. The scoring is most likely going to come from Junior Damonta Henry, a combo guard, who’s capable of doing multiple things on the court. He’s lightning quick and can get into the paint with ease, but he has the leaping ability to rebound with the best of them. It’ll be interesting to see if he can step up and lead the Bulldogs to a conference title.

The Bulldogs open their season with the annual Thanksgiving Tournament in December. The Bulldogs will also compete in the Derrick Rose Shootout against Farragut. Then, the conference schedule begins where Dogs look to take control early, and bring home yet another title.

Bulldog ballers beat Miami Heat’s Big Three

APRIL FOOL’S DISCLAIMER:
The story below is intended as humor only and is not intended to be accurate.  All RB community participants in the story provided written permission for their names to appear.

Everyone knows about the Miami’s big three of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. They are arguably the best players in the NBA. The Heat’s record is 48-22 and have been on a little slump lately.

Some teams they have lost to that don’t have the greatest records are: The Los Angeles Clippers, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and the Memphis Grizzlies etc. This shows that they can lose to any team and the big three still aren’t on the same page.

The Heat’s last game was against the Riverside Brookfield Bulldogs. The match was very tough and it was a bad beat for the Heat. The Bulldogs big three consists of: Ryan “Action” Jackson, Alex “Z” Dziagwa, and Charlie “Doc” Morrissey. These three can play together that’s for sure and they all put up huge numbers, so we all knew who would win this game.

The final score was 172 to 58 for the Bulldogs, it was just practice for them. The Bulldogs big three put up 160 out of the 172 points. Ryan “Action” Jackson put up 75 big points. Alex “Z” Dziagwa scored 40 points and put up a whopping 50 blocks. Charlie “Doc” Morrissey scored 45 points, all coming from beyond the three point line, that’s fifteen threes. Also some other small contributions from the team were Nate Hanley with 5 points, Luke Nortier also with 5 points, and Mike Lebeau with 2 points and five fouls.

This game was complete destruction from the Bulldogs, it was pretty much practice to them, that is practice that was on T.V. The Heat’s big three is no match for the Bulldogs big three.

Poker team added as IHSA sport

APRIL FOOL’S DISCLAIMER:
The story below is intended as humor only and is not intended to be accurate.  All RB community participants in the story provided written permission for their names to appear.

After several long discussions, a few tears shed, and plenty of controversy, a new sport has been added at Riverside-Brookfield. Poker is the name of the game and it is going to be a sport, not a club.

Poker will be considered a winter sport and will have all of their games played in the main gym. It is a cut sport and from the looks of it, there will be a lot of competition to make the team. At the meeting to determine whether poker would be a sport at RB, exactly 1000 kids showed up, and all appeared determined to get poker to be a sport. Once the administration saw the how many students showed up, they immediately gave in to the demands. All of the one thousand kids say that they will try out in the winter of the 2011-2012 school year.

Even several kids from local schools such as Nazareth and Lyons Township were at the meeting because those schools don’t yet have poker teams. One student for a local high school said he would transfer now that RB got a poker.

The coaches have not been selected yet, but the administration says that they want the varsity head coach to have experience in the World Series of Poker, preferably having finished in the top five in a competition.

The addition of this poker team has not made everyone happy, though. Coaches of winter sports such as basketball, swimming, and wrestling are angry because nearly every star player has decided to try out for poker. The rosters for these other winter sports will most likely be made up of rejects from the poker team. The basketball coaches are especially mad because the poker matches will be held on Friday nights in the main gym. This means that the basketball home games will be held in the East gym or the field house. The enormously popular Sixth Man has also decided to stay in the main gym to cheer for the poker team, meaning that the crowd at the basketball game will plummet.

The winter sport coaches aren’t the only people angered by this. The class of 2011 is mad because they won’t be able to compete on the poker team because they are graduating. Several seniors are contemplating failing on purpose, so that they would have to come back as super-seniors, just so that they could try out for the poker team in 2011-2012.

One senior that is especially mad is 6-9 standout basketball senior Alex Dziagwa. He is going to college for basketball, but he swears that poker is his pastime. “I’m mad that they waited until I graduated to start a poker team. I would have quit basketball in a second to join the poker team. Every match I would wear my orange vest and it would be unstoppable,” he said.

More controversy is sure to follow until the team is finally selected in November.

Boys’ basketball advances to sectional championship

The boys’ basketball team never backed down after trailing by twelve points with five minutes left in the first half, or even after trailing by seven with three minutes left in regulation. Senior star point guard and Lewis University commit Ryan Jackson led the Bulldogs to victory over the Orr Spartans (15-10) and University of Illinois recruit Mycheal Henry 60-54 on Wednesday night, with Illini Coach Bruce Weber in attendance.  Jackson dropped 23 big points on a night where the Bulldogs seemed to struggle from the field.

Orr seemed to slow the pace of the game when they had the ball, and kept the Bulldogs in check offensively. But the Dogs kept forcing the issue, continuing to take long range shots until they started to fall.

6’9” senior forward Alex Dziagwa had his best game of the season adding 17 points and 12 boards, capping off the win with an electrifying dunk with 27 seconds left to play that sent the crowd into a frenzy. After the monster performance “Z” was all smiles, embracing the mob of students that stormed the court to celebrate with the team.

“It was a huge win”, said Dziagwa. “First time we’ve ever won a sectional game; we’re making history.”

He also acknowledged crowd, most notably RB’s student section the “Sixth Man”, saying, “Right before the tip-off for the second overtime, I looked up into the Sixth Man and saw everyone holding up their Z’s and that’s when I knew we were going to win.”

The Dogs trailed for most of the game, missing their first nine three-point attempts, but played suffocating defense to keep Orr close. Senior forward Mike LeBeau and junior forward Luke Nortier were able to contain Henry to 14 points and held Ball State recruit and senior guard C.J. Jones to 15 points while forcing some critical turnovers in the key moments of the game.

Jackson hit a pair of free throws with 48 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game at 40, and after an unsuccessful possession for the Spartans, Jackson missed a hit a half-court shot sending the contest into overtime. He then drained a three-pointer to start the first overtime, but Orr came charging back and eventually took a two point lead with 12 seconds to play. That’s when Jackson received the ball in the post and made a beautiful spin move lay-up to force double overtime.

In the second OT, Dziagwa took over by dominating on the boards, blocking Henry on two separate occasions, creating plays down low that forced Henry to foul out of the game, and scoring 10 of the last 12 RB points including the last 8 points of the game after going 6 of 6 from the charity stripe.

The Bulldogs will face Crane tonight at 7:30 at RB for the sectional championship.

Jackson pacing Boys’ Basketball at midseason

The Boys’ Basketball team is continuing to have a successful season thus far, charging out to a 12-4 record. Ryan Jackson has steadily paced the team all season long, dropping over 30 points several times and recently scoring 40 in a win over Illiana Christian. Jackson also recently became a member of the 1,000 point club at RB, just the 9^th player to do so.

The Dogs are still undefeated in conference play, and aim to run the table in their remaining conference games leading up to the state playoffs. Last year the Bulldogs’ season ended in heartbreaking fashion after a buzzer beater sent the game into overtime against the eventual victors Marshall Commandos.

The Bulldogs have also received solid play from seniors Charlie Morrissey, Alex Dziagwa, Nate Hanley, Jake Johnson, Watoris Slater, and Mike LeBeau. In addition, one of their biggest contributors this season is sophomore Damonta Henry, who led the sophomore team last year as a freshman. Junior Luke Nortier has also been solid off the bench thus far, and is earning more and more minutes each game.

Friday, the Bulldogs will welcome the Ridgewood Rebels and also feature the Alumni Game. The senior guard Morrissey is not taking Ridgewood lightly. However, he feels that there’s a few important ways to beat the Rebels, “The Rebels have 12 or 13 guards on their team, so I think if we can stop their three-point shooting and protect against the drive and kick-out offense we should be able to win.”

The team has lost quite a bit of depth from last season, but they feel that they still have the talent to recapture last season’s success and build on it. Coach Tom McCloskey has his kids playing at a high level, something that he feels confident in. They have nine games left on their regular season schedule and seven of them are conference games.

They will have the tough task of traveling to North Park University on Saturday to play Farragut Career Academy, ranked #3 in the state. They also host Morton on Tuesday, February 22^nd, which is Senior Night at RB. In all likelihood the Dogs will be in a good position to receive a higher seed come playoff time, most likely receiving a #5 or #6 seed in their Sectional.

Hoops fever is sky high

With the boy’s basketball season finally here, Riverside Brookfield High School could not be more pumped. With nine players returning for another season, the Bulldogs are back and better than ever.

The starting five players are a strong core of athletes including three all conference returners: Six foot one inch guard Senior Sean McGonagill, six foot guard Senior Billy VandeMerkt, and six foot two inch guard Junior Ryan Jackson. Added to those three are six foot five inch center Senior Terrence Reed, who will be commanding the paint this year, and six foot one inch guard/forward Junior Watoris Slater, who will be a rebounding machine. Both of these players are sure to help ensure the team victory.

The Bulldogs also have a strong core of players that will be coming off the bench. Six foot eight inch center Junior Alex Dziagwa, six foot four inch guard Senior Mike Hansa, six foot one inch guard/forward Senior Mark McDonagh, five foot eleven inch guard Senior Nick Arias, and five foot eleven inch guard Senior Matt Meindl, will all provide relief to the starting five.

The Bulldogs opened up their season this past weekend at the Bill VandeMerkt tournament hosted at RB. The team dominated the competition winning their second consecutive title by beating Payton 65-26, Hinsdale South 73-49, and rival Nazareth 69-45. 

The Bulldogs are looking to keep their undefeated season going by taking on the Tigers of Elmwood Park on Friday, December 4^th at 7 p.m. Come cheer on the Bulldogs, wear your blue and white, and be ready to scream your heart out.