Strong finish has Highland boys cagers trending in right direction for next season

During a 2021-22 basketball season that had much more normalcy due to less COVID-19 restrictions, the Highland Bulldogs boys basketball team dealt with injuries, their coach being sidelined with a major health issue, and finding a rhythm on the floor.

When the season ended in the regional final round for HHS, a strong sense existed the team was in a good place with even better days to follow next season.

Highland finished the 2021-22 campaign at 14-17, but closed the winter as one of the metro-east’s hottest teams, winning five of their final six games to reach the IHSA Class 3A regional championship game Feb. 25 at Cahokia.

Although the Bulldogs came up short — falling 78-57 to Class 3A super-sectional participant East St. Louis — Highland’s late-season surge left coach Deryl Cunningham feeling good about what the club accomplished given the challenges they faced.

“Overall, I was personally wanting more but it was a difficult situation,” Cunningham said. “It was a very difficult situation and we worked through it.”

HHS started the season at 6-8 as key players Joe Jansen and Cade Altadonna were sidelined with injuries. Brendan Gelly, meanwhile, missed several weeks due to mononucleosis.

Add to that Cunningham was away from the team for six weeks due to a scheduled kidney transplant procedure and the Bulldogs were forced to regroup and adjust, which was far from easy.

“I came back during the toughest part of the season where we were on the road at Mascoutah, at Collinsville, Alton Marquette, Waterloo Gibault ... so those are tough games and I came back during a tough period (for the team),” Cunningham said.

Over the next month, Highland struggled to find consistency on both ends of the floor, dropping to 9-16 after an embarrassing 50-36 home loss Jan. 28 to Mississippi Valley Conference opponent Jerseyville.

“We just didn’t play well against them for whatever reason,” Cunningham said.

Ten days later, a gritty wire-to-wire effort produced a big 39-30 road win over MVC archrival Triad. That performance seemed to jump-start the Bulldogs for the final stretch.

Cunningham believed the biggest challenge for the team was the players adjusting to his presence again in practice and games after his mid-January return.

“I think the biggest thing that changed for us then was me coming back after dealing with the kidney transplant and the kids adjusting to me coaching again,” Cunningham said. “When I came back I think we knew it (the adjustment) wasn’t going to happen in a day or two, it was going to take a couple of weeks and I also had a lot of things to work out and through after the kidney transplant, so that factored into it when I came back to coach.”

That adjustment started to come full circle when Highland knocked off the Knights.

“It seems like that was the night we were pretty resilient,” Cunningham said. “We went to Triad and that’s a big game for us and for them and not only to win but to win on their home floor certainly had to build some morale for the team. I thought that was huge.”

Guards help shape turnaround

As the Bulldogs entered the final five games of the regular season, strong play on both ends of the floor from guards Jake Ottensmeier, Cade Altadonna and Gelly helped kickstart the HHS offense.

Ottensmeier and Altadonna were named to the Mississippi Valley All-Conference team as first and second team selections, respectively, Tuesday, March 8.

Ottensmeier — the Bulldogs sophomore point guard — started the season quietly but grew into his role as one of the team captains and became a vocal leader on the floor averaging a team-high 13.9 points a game.

“Anybody that was given a captain (role), it’s because they earned it and Jake wanted to be more of leader anyway. You know kids can kind of want to give input, but I don’t want to step on toes,” Cunningham said. “I told him ... ‘no you’ve got to be a captain’ and I think once we got that figured out a little more, he was more confident and gave the guys really good information.”

Key freshman, HHS hot streak

Freshman Grant Fleming also came on strong during the season. Fleming, an athletic 6-3 forward, averaged 5.1 points per game and brought great energy off the bench but it was his hustle and rebounding that really gave the Bulldogs an extra boost.

Fleming racked up 97 rebounds with a 3.2 per game average.

“The biggest reason I moved Grant up was that we didn’t have any size,” Cunningham said. “In pick-up games, he more than held his own and rebounded. And he did a lot of intangibles (during the season) and he understood his role and, as he kept getting better and better, he kept picking up confidence and started scoring it (the ball).”

From Feb. 8-23, Highland posted five-straight wins over Triad, Civic Memorial, Gibault and Waterloo, and then blasted Jerseyville 60-46 in the Class 3A regional semifinals at Cahokia.

That hot streak was halted two days later in the regional championship game against East St. Louis.

The future appears bright

As a result, Highland finished the season on a strong path but Cunningham believes another level is possible for this group next season.

“The biggest thing now is to give them a (mental) break,” Cunningham said. “They need some time off mentally as it was a very difficult year. But they are an older group and guys like Jake, Cade, and Brendan Gelly, those guys know what it takes to get to the next level (of success), so we won’t have to spend as much time working on that when we start back in the offseason.”