50 After 50: Beating three undefeated teams ranked among top four in state wraps up No. 2 Vikings’ amazing title run

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. 2 — 1997-98 Nauvoo-Colusa

NAUVOO, Ill. — After Nauvoo-Colusa had beaten Farmington 48-47 in the semifinals to advance to the state championship game of the 1998 Class A state tournament, David Griffiths called his grandfather.

John Griffiths recently had undergone three bypass surgeries, and doctors recommended he stay home rather than watch the down-to-the-wire high school postseason basketball games that grandsons David and Brian played in.

“It started with the super-sectional,” David Griffiths said. “The pressure and excitement weren’t good for his heart, so I’d call and say, ‘Hey, we won the game.’ So, after I told him about the Farmington game, I said, ‘Well, I’ll call you back after we win tonight. Bye.’ ”

“We were going to play against an undefeated team that was in the championship game the year before, but that’s David,” Vikings coach Reno Pinkston said with a laugh. “He had great confidence in every part of our system and every confidence in his teammates. He never believed we were going to lose.”

Who could have believed Nauvoo-Colusa would make it through the gauntlet of teams it eventually played on the way to winning a state title?

Nick Vlahos, a reporter with the Peoria Journal-Star, made a brash statement that Nauvoo-Colusa had no chance of reaching the Class A quarterfinals. If the Vikings somehow qualified for Peoria, he would push a peanut down Nauvoo’s main street.

After the Vikings beat undefeated A-C Central 59-56 to win the super-sectional at Macomb, Vlahos pushed his peanut across the gym floor before a packed crowd at the high school.

In the wake of Warsaw’s state championship run the year before, the Vikings believed they could make a long postseason run of their own. Five of their top six players were back from a team that had a 23-6 record in 1996-97.

“We played Warsaw three times the year before, and we basically choked a game in the Hancock County Tournament,” Griffiths said. “They were seniors, and we were juniors and sophomores. So, we had real high expectations for the next year. Nauvoo’s a small town, and we played basketball all the time. My class went to the state tournament in junior high twice. The junior class went undefeated and won the state tournament in the eighth grade.”

The Vikings won 10 of their first 11 games, with seven victories by 20 points or more. The only early loss was a 45-44 setback to Camp Point Central at the Suns Classic. Nauvoo-Colusa then won its first two games at the Mississippi Valley Invitational Tournament in Mendon but lost 60-53 to a talented Moberly (Mo.) team.

“That was a nice team,” David Griffiths said. “That Camp Point team, I believe if we played them 10 times, we beat them nine. We were probably a little overconfident against them. Same thing with Payson Seymour (which defeated the Vikings 81-80 on Feb. 17). But Moberly was a 50-50 shot for us.”

Nauvoo-Colusa racked off 11 consecutive victories before the loss to Payson Seymour. One victory that gave the Vikings a spike a confidence was a 75-61 decision on Jan. 27 over Quincy Notre Dame, ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press Class A state poll.

“QND was obviously the benchmark,” David Griffiths said. “That was the one team you’re wondering about if we’re good enough to go to state. I’m not being disrespectful, but those guys, we kind of handled them on that night. That made us feel real good.”

The loss to Payson Seymour, however, didn’t set well with Pinkston. The Indians had a 14-12 record entering the game. A basket by Travis Liebig forced overtime, and Adam Schreacke made two free throws with no time on the clock completed the upset on Senior Night in Payson.

Seeing his team allow 81 points made Pinkston burn.

“Oh, we got laid into,” David Griffiths said. “You do that again, and your high school career is done. That was the next-to-last game before regionals. Riding the bus for an hour and 15 minutes, it was one of our longest trips of the season. I remember thinking, ‘God, we just drove all the way to Payson. We’re going to beat this team. No big deal.’ We didn’t guard anybody, and they kept scoring and scoring and scoring.”

The team stayed in the locker room for more than an hour before boarding the bus home.

“My presentation was a little salty,” Pinkston said. “The guys told me years later they were grumbling about driving all the way to Payson, and they weren’t treating it with the respect that they should have. We could score, but we couldn’t stop anybody. I didn’t like the mindset of what I was seeing.

“I said we had nine games left. If you guys don’t want to be a part of this, quit right now. I want to go on nine-game winning streak to win the whole thing, and it’s up to you guys if you want to come with me or not. Otherwise, I’d like you to respect me enough to leave the team if you don’t believe that we are capable of doing that.

“The janitor was probably waiting to shut the dang doors so he could go home, but nobody bothered me to stop. They knew I was on edge.”

The Vikings defeated Dallas City 80-42 in the last game of the regular season. They took a 24-3 record into regional play but were unranked in the state poll. Joe Wilson, a 6-foot-5 junior swingman, led the team in scoring at 13.4 points per game. Emmett Reidner, a 6-foot-2 junior center, averaged 12.5 points. Griffiths added 10.4 points, and senior forward Doug Siegfried added 9.3. Senior point guard David Hanna averaged 7.3 points and nearly six assists.

Wilson had 21 points in the first game of the regional at Carthage, which Nauvoo-Colusa won 55-43 over Sciota Northwestern. Wilson sat out much of the regional championship game against Warsaw as he dealt with mononucleosis, which he fought for much of the season. However, Reidner had 16 points in a 50-39 victory. The regional title was Nauvoo-Colusa’s first in 19 years.

Brown County was the opponent in the semifinals of the sectional at Bushnell, and an unlikely hero made a huge shot to keep the Vikings’ postseason hopes alive. The Hornets led most of the game, but sophomore Brian Griffiths, who averaged just 3.6 points, made a 3-pointer in the final seconds of regulation play to tie the score at 51. The Vikings made 11 3-pointers in the game and won 60-57 in overtime.

“That’s the one that really could have killed the whole dream,” David Griffiths said. “I don’t know about the rest of the guys, but I didn’t expect that team to be as good as it was. All of a sudden, crap, we were down.”

“If Brian doesn’t hit that three against Brown County, we don’t go into overtime, and we are just another really good team that just didn’t make it,” Pinkston said.

The next game, a rematch with Notre Dame, was just as thrilling.

In the second half, there were nine ties and four lead changes. The Raiders’ Andy Liesen stole the ball and went in for a layup to tie the score at 59 with 50 seconds remaining. The Vikings then waited to take the last shot, with Doug Siegfried patiently handling the ball at the top of the key and his teammates spaced out along the baseline.

“We’d run that play so many times in practice,” David Griffiths said. “Coach was so confident. We had play after play after play we could run, and we knew what we were going to do. Whatever he called, we could run it in our sleep.”

Siegfried drove the left side of the lane with six seconds left. QND’s Jason Meyer stepped in from the left wing to help stop the play. Siegfried passed the ball to the corner to David Griffiths, who calmly hit a 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of 6-foot-9 Brian McNeil as the buzzer sounded to a 62-59 victory.

“I remember saying in the paper afterwards that we would run that set in practice, and I never got passed the ball,” David Griffiths said. “Doug either would get to a spot where he could score, or (an opposing defender) would step up, and Doug would dish to one of our bigs. In practice, we’re being guarded by our own players. They know I’m a shooter, so they try not to leave me. I’m going to say if we run that in practice 100 times, maybe twice does the ball ever go to me.

“That was probably the highlight of my high school career.”

Nauvoo-Colusa started the super-sectional game on a 12-2 run and never trailed in handing A-C Central, ranked No. 4 in the state, its first loss.

However, the Vikings trailed by as many as 15 points in the second quarter of their quarterfinal game against Chrisman. A switch to a man-to-man defense, which put Wilson on the Cardinals’ all-state center, helped Nauvoo-Colusa to come from behind to win 59-52. David Griffiths had 19 points to lead three players in double figures.

“Joe just kind of really clamped down on him and make sure he didn’t beat us,” David Griffiths said.

The Vikings were in trouble again against No. 2-ranked and unbeaten Farmington, trailing 40-29 after three quarters. They rallied to tie the game at 47. When they got the ball with 26 seconds remaining, they called the same play they used against Quincy Notre Dame. This time, however, the ball was in David Griffiths’ hands at the top of the key

“That was the only time the whole year I’d ever run the point on that,” he said. “Coach said, “Dave, you want the ball? You want to do this?’ And I’m like, yeah. I’m a little surprised. He knew I’d make the right pass. If I got fouled, I was one of the best free throw shooters.”

David Griffiths drove the lane, and when one of the Farmers helped stop the play, Griffiths passed the ball to Wilson, who was fouled with one second remaining. Wilson missed the first free throw but made the second to complete the 48-47 victory.

Many of the players were sitting in Carver Arena later that night, watching Leo and Farmington in the third-place game. Pinkston and Griffiths, however, were talking in the locker room. Pinkston’s father was going to be in the arena to watch his son coach a game for the first time.

“The guys asked if they could go watch, and I said sure. I’ll call you back in plenty of time,” Pinkston said. “But David doesn’t go. He just sat there with me. He says, ‘How great is this, Coach?’ I said, ‘Well, we’ve got one more.’

“He says, ‘This is the greatest time in my life.’ He was so relaxed.”

“I remember I was nervous for the Quincy Notre Dame game at home,” David Griffiths said. “I remember the same thing before the A-C Central game in the super-sectional. But when it finally came to our last game, I was just not nervous at all. I knew we were going to guard the hell out of people and take good shots, so it was going to turn out how it’s going to turn out.”

Undefeated and No. 1-ranked Spring Valley Hall had returned to the championship game after losing to Warsaw for the title the previous year. The Red Devils beat their opponents by an average of 26 points per game. They were considered a huge favorite to claim the crown.

During pregame introductions, All-State guard Shawn Jeppson cut his hand on a camera and needed three stitches at halftime. He scored 51 points against Warsaw in the 1997 title game, but Nauvoo-Colusa limited Jeppson to 4-of-10 shooting and nine points. The Vikings finished their improbable run with a 45-39 victory.

Some experts thought the cut on Jeppson’s hand was the break the Vikings needed to pull off the upset. Pinkston scoffs at that idea.

“A coaching friend of mine was sitting behind (the Hall bench) and saw the cut on (Jeppson’s) hand,” Pinkston said. “He said you could hardly see it. It was on the outside of his hand, not on the palm. So if you cut me on the outside of my hand, I can still shoot the ball. If you cut my hand on the inside, where the ball’s going to roll off it, that might be a problem.

“Guess what? You know in the wintertime, if you’ve been outside too much, your hands get so dry. Joe Wilson had a cut on the index finger on his shooting hand. We’d always put salve on it and try to tape it up. He also had mononucleosis that year. We didn’t make that a big deal of it. We kept it to ourselves and found a way to get through stuff.”

“I’ve heard people say, ‘The only reason you won is because (Jeppson) cut his hand,’ ” David Griffiths said. “Look at the number of shots he got. He only took 10 shots. His percentage was fine.”

Nauvoo-Colusa, which finished with a 32-3 record, was the fourth unranked team to win title since 1972. Any discussion about the most unlikely state champion always includes the Vikings.

“It’s probably blissful ignorance, but the community felt bigger about it than we did,” David Griffths said. “We kind of got used to winning, but seeing the parents just awestruck was cool. I remember at my senior graduation party, my dad’s telling guys, ‘That night (of the state championship) was better than the best night of my life. It was better than my wedding night.’

“Then he looked at me and says, ‘You’re not telling your mother that.’ ”

Griffiths lives in Nauvoo and manages 16 grain elevators in Hancock County and Henderson County, with one in Iowa.

Pinkston retired from full-time teaching and coaching. He is a part-time drivers’ education teacher. The memory of his team winning a state title and his dad being there to see it is etched in his mind forever.

“My dad was a retired state policeman. My cousin was with the Illinois State Police,” Pinkston said. “They get to the game in Peoria, and it’s sold out. So, my cousin shows them his badge, talks a little bit and then motions my dad to come in. They sat right behind (the Hall bench). I’ve never found out how it happened or who was supposed to sit there.

“This guy sitting beside my dad kept talking about how great Spring Valley Hall was. Dad just listened to it. At the end of the game, when Emmett shoots two free throws (to clinch the game with 14 seconds left), Dad looks at the guy and says, ‘See that boy coaching that team? That’s my son.’ He didn’t say anything else. He listened to that guy’s crap all game. He was going to let him know why he was there.

“When the horn went off, nobody could take that moment away from us. It was done. It was absolutely finished. The euphoria started right from that moment. The depression started the next day, because you think you don’t ever want that feeling to be gone.”