50 After 50: After winning first 27 games, No. 19 Indians ran into ‘Goliath’ Havana in sectional final

The Illinois High School Association created a second class for boys basketball for the 1971-72 school year. The 2020-21 season would have been the 50th year of the boys basketball small-school tournament. Muddy River Sports is celebrating 50 years of small-school boys basketball by ranking the 50 best teams in Adams, Brown, Pike and Hancock counties since 1972.

No. 19 — 1978-79 Payson Seymour

PAYSON, Ill. — After his high school playing days ended, Rodney Roberts went to Culver-Stockton College and roomed with David Bier during the second semester of his freshman year.

They became lifelong friends, and Bier was in Roberts’ wedding. However, they never could agree on one thing. 

Which team would have won a game between Payson Seymour, where Roberts played, and Palmyra, Mo., where Bier played? Roberts’ team finished 27-1 during the 1978-79 season, while Bier’s team finished 29-0 and won the Missouri Class 2A state championship.

“I always teased him that we considered ourselves winning the state championship, because we would have cleaned you guys up,” Roberts said with a laugh.

Payson Seymour and Palmyra typically played each year. When Indians coach Rod Walton learned his team had a chance to play Chicago-area teams Providence St. Mel and Quigley North at home, Palmyra was one of the teams dropped from the schedule.

“The scuttlebutt was that Payson dropped Palmyra because we thought we’d lose,” Roberts said. “It was a scheduling thing.”

Turns out it also was a life experience thing.

The Indians, who returned starters Steve Mixer and Paul Maple from a 24-2 team the season before, won all eight games they played before Christmas. After playing Quincy Notre Dame on Friday, Jan. 5, St. Mel played Payson Seymour the next night. However, the Knights spent most of Saturday with the Indians. Many of the Payson players watched games on television or went to the Quincy Mall with their guests. Roberts took his guest, Ronnie Brown, to his home.

“It was something that a little old school county school had never done,” Roberts said. “It actually became a very good teaching thing. We all met in the gym Saturday morning with their coach and players, and they hooked us up. Every player took one of their players home for the day. These guys had never been out of the city. I mean, they’re used to concrete. Just having conversations with that Chicago culture was just … at that time, I’m just an old farm boy. I worked on a farm. 

“So I took Ronnie down to the farm and showed him pigs and cows. This guy just can’t believe it. He was acting like we were in the wilderness. He said, ‘Aren’t you afraid something’s gonna come out of these trees at any moment?’ I told him he was safe here. I’d never met anybody from Chicago, and if I was in Chicago, I would have been worried about who’s coming around the corner of a building. He still couldn’t believe where I lived.

“My little circle of the world was pretty small. That was one of Walton’s better moves.”

Roberts had 19 points and led five players in double figures in a 93-77 victory over St. Mel.

In fact, the victories kept adding up for the Indians. They won three games in the Wenois Tournament, then earned their 15th victory with a 59-58 nail-biter against Unity on Jan. 26. The Indians shot 65 percent from the field and knocked off Quigley North (which had a 15-2 record and a 6-foot-7 and a 6-foot-8 starter) 75-59 on Feb. 2. Payson Seymour picked up victory No. 20 on Feb. 13 in a 50-40 victory over Central. 

“(Beating St. Mel and Quigley North) gave us a lot of confidence,” Roberts said. “We were moving and shaking against Quigley North.”

Roberts led the Indians in scoring at 20.8 points per game, but three other starters — Maple (13.3 ppg), Mixer (10.1 ppg) and Chuck McNett (10.1 ppg) — also scored in double figures. The regular season ended with a 24-0 record and a No. 1 seed in the regional in Mount Sterling. 

Payson Seymour opened postseason play with a 67-60 victory over Central in the semifinals. The Panthers got as close as three-points in the fourth quarter, but Mixer’s dunk and subsequent three-point play gave the Indians breathing room.

Roberts then scored 32 in the regional final, a 74-50 victory over Unity. After the Mustangs scored the game’s first basket, Payson Seymour scored the next 17 points to take control.

The regional title was the first in school history, but it was a little bittersweet because of one team that didn’t take part.

“We really wanted to play Notre Dame,” Roberts said of the Raiders, who played in the Class AA tournament that season. “Those guys were buddies of mind. I played a lot of ball with them.” 

The Indians got 27 points from Maple and 20 from Roberts in a 64-53 victory over Nauvoo-Colusa in the semifinals of the sectional at Lewistown.

With an undefeated record entering sectional a sectional championship, most teams couldn’t help but start thinking about an appearance in Champaign for the state tournament. However, Payson Seymour knew one big hurdle had to be cleared in undefeated Havana, which had placed second in the state tournament in 1978.

The matchup in Lewistown was a battle of two of the only three unbeaten teams in Class A.

“We’re gonna get our shot at Havana,” Indians coach Rod Walton told The Herald-Whig. “That’s what we wanted. That’s what we’ve waited for.”

The Indians led 30-29 after three quarters, but they missed their first eight shots of the fourth quarter in a 46-34 loss to Havana. The Ducks went on to lose to Walter Downing-led New Lenox Providence in the Class A state championship game. Roberts missed 15 of 20 shots in the game and scored just 10 points.

“(Havana) had me pushed so far out,” Roberts said. “I was kind of marked all season, but that game, man, it was the hardest. They were just all over me. I literally couldn’t get loose. But at the end of the third quarter, I got loose for a couple of shots and tied the game. Being totally transparent here, I thought, ‘OK, I’ve found my range. I’m ready to go now in the fourth quarter.’ And they fly it over to me, and I’m on the wing and (Havana’s) Tracy Trimpe jumped up, blocked my shot out to about the halfcourt line, and I even think he went down and slammed it. We were chasing after that point. 

“When we had them down after three quarters, I was hearing things I’d never heard before in a ballgame from fans. You’d get ready to take the ball out of bounds, and they’d be saying things like … well, there were some rough cats up there.”

More than 40 years later, Roberts says the Indians could have won the game, but he’s not sure they should have won the game.

“They were a Goliath,” he said. “Once the game was going, and we got settled down, I felt we had a chance to win. When you look back at it now, we were expected to lose. I think most people just wanted us to give them a game. The game was just met with so much anticipation because we were both undefeated. And midway through the fourth quarter, we were all right.”

Roberts lives in Kansas City and owns a Farmers Insurance agency in Shawnee, Kan. When he thinks back to his senior season, he remembers how much he appreciated Walton. 

“He was one of the probably one of the most influential persons in my life,” Roberts said. “Walton was old school. He taught discipline, respect, and you did it. If you screw up, he’d say, ‘Get on the line,’ and we’d run until we were ready to puke. But boy, were we in shape come fourth quarter. There was a reason behind the madness.”