Althoff celebrates state title with Belleville parade, pep rally

Keenen Young, a four-year starter for the Althoff Catholic High School boys basketball team that won the state title, summed up the Crusaders’ season this way:

“It’s just been fun,” Young said after a boisterous rally Sunday afternoon in the school gym.

“When we went up there for state, we just soaked it all in,” said Young, who also played on the Althoff football team that finished second in the state in November. Young is headed to Jackson State University in Mississippi on a football scholarship.

The Crusaders defeated Lincoln-Way West 62-37 at the Class 3A state championship game Saturday in Peoria. It was the first-ever state basketball title for a Belleville-based high school in 99 seasons of playing the sport.

Before the rally, the players rode on top of a Belleville fire truck for a chilly cruise down Main Street.

Coach Greg Leib introduced the players to the crowd of about 300 at the rally. He praised each player individually and described how they contributed to the championship.

“I’m such a blessed guy to get to do what I do,” Leib said as he ended his talk.

Last year, Althoff finished second in the state in basketball and fans had high expectations for the team this season.

For Glenn Schott, the former Althoff athletic director who hired Leib, this was added pressure that Leib and the players handled remarkably well.

“Everybody was expecting us to go back to the playoffs and go back to the state championship,” Schott said. “(The players) had to live and Coach Leib had to live under that all year.

“He did a masterful job of it, he really did,” Schott said of Leib.

Schott also noted the team had to play most of the season without junior Edwyn Brown, who suffered a torn ligament injury to his right foot in the state football championship game on Nov. 27 and couldn’t return to the basketball team until last week.

When Brown received the medical clearance to resume playing, he went to Leib’s office and emphatically told his coach, “I’m back.”

“I had Christmas in March,” Leib told the rally crowd about the moment when he realized Brown would be able to play in the state tournament.

Schott, who coached the Althoff football team to three state championships, credited the basketball team for being “unselfish” and for playing tough defense, particularly in the second and third quarters against Lincoln-Way West on Saturday.

“Anytime you win a state championship, it takes such a tremendous amount of dedication,” Schott said. “The kids did a great job.”

Bernard Bauer, a longtime Althoff fan who graduated from the school in 1968, attended the rally to show his support for the team.

Bauer enjoyed watching the team play a “very exciting brand of basketball.”

This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 1:37 PM with the headline "Althoff celebrates state title with Belleville parade, pep rally."