50 After 50: Court injunction after regional, ‘chaos’ at sectional doesn’t stop No. 40 Cardinals

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. 40 — 1976-77 Hamilton

HAMILTON, Ill. — The path to the super-sectional taken by the 1976-77 Hamilton team had to be one of the wildest and craziest of any from west-central Illinois.

The first break the Cardinals received, however, happened during the summer.

Hal Hall and his younger brother, Scott, lived in Hamilton through Hal’s sixth grade year. The Hall family then moved to Ohio, and the boys attended Lake High School near Millbury, Ohio.

“That’s where I learned to play basketball,” Hal Hall said. “We played Youngstown and Barberton and Massillon and Canton McKinley. If you’re 6-foot-1 or 6-foot-2, either you learn how to use your body and your elbows, or I was going to get swamped. That’s where I learned to play with my back to the basket. Today that’s a lost art.”

After the Lake basketball team had its basketball banquet after Hal’s junior season, the Hall family moved back to Hancock County the next day. He attended Hamilton High School for the last two months.

Hal Hall knew Doug Monroe would be back on the 1976-77 team after averaging 18.3 points per game as a junior. He also excited to play for veteran coach Bill “Red” Rogers.

“Doug Monroe is one of the best pure shooters to ever come out of this area,” Hal Hall said. “When we moved back and we were going up to the Hamilton court in the summer, we were sweating and getting in fights, and there was blood. I knew we were going to be good.”

The Cardinals were the top seed in the regional with a 19-3 record. They opened with a 71-60 victory over Dallas City, with Monroe and the Hall brothers combining for 54 points. Hamilton then edged LaHarpe 75-74 in the semifinals, then the trio combined for 48 points in a 67-58 victory over Nauvoo-Colusa in the championship game.

Hamilton previously won regional titles in 1965 and 1966. Before that, Hamilton’s last regional championship came in 1942. 

Up next was the sectional in Lewistown — but not before a delay. The Cardinals were scheduled to play March 2. They were on the bus on their way to play, only to be stopped by a sheriff’s deputy in Dallas City and told to return home. Officials at LaHarpe High School filed for a temporary injunction to postpone Hamilton’s semifinal game with Table Grove VIT. The injunction was granted by Hancock County Judge Max Stewart in Carthage. 

In the regional semifinals, Hamilton trailed 74-72 with 22 seconds to play.

“(The Cardinals’) Bill Dorethy was fouled,” Hal Hall said. “We go to the free-throw line. One of the officials showed a one-and-one, and the other showed two shots. I happened to see the guy who signaled a one-and-one, so when (Dorethy’s first free throw) came off the rim, everybody stood there. I jumped in, grabbed the ball and put it back in. Everybody kind of looked around, we took off and ran down the court and played.”

LaHarpe went down the floor with a chance to win, but an offensive foul was called. When the officials went to the scorer’s table to report the foul, the official scorer said they had missed Dorethy’s second free throw. After about a 15-minute delay, the officials decided to give Dorethy a second free throw. They also decided anything that had happened after Dorethy missed the first free throw still counted.

Dorothy made the free throw with four seconds left, and a last-second shot by LaHarpe rimmed out.

Officials from Hamilton, LaHarpe and the Illinois High School Association met before Warren County Circuit Court Judge Scott Klukos on March 3. Referee Jack Jones testified he had made mistakes in the final seconds of the game. However, “the board of directors will not review the decision of officials whether alleged errors are due to faulty judgment or misinterpretation of the rules” is the IHSA by-law upon which Klukos ruled to end the injunction.

When the ruling was delivered at 4:55 p.m., Rogers left the courtroom and immediately drove to Lewistown to join his team. The Cardinals trailed by 14 points at halftime and by three with a minute to play, but a turnaround jumper by Hal Hall was followed by a steal from Scott Hall. Monroe then scored with 23 seconds left to give Hamilton its only lead in a 72-71 nailbiter,

Hamilton then faced Quincy Notre Dame, ranked No. 1 in the Class A state poll for much of the season and No. 5 in the final regular season poll. 

“I think we won our first nine games, and Red told us, ‘You guys play your cards right, you will get a shot at Notre Dame,’” Hal Hall said. “It definitely made me pay attention to Notre Dame.”

Hamilton capitalized on the chance. The Cardinals led by 10 at halftime and never relinquished it in a 72-65 victory. Monroe and Hal Hall combined to score 53 points, including 30 out of 34 in the second half. The Raiders had four players foul out, and a technical foul with 52 seconds remaining sealed their fate. 

“That was probably one of the biggest wins Hamilton has ever had,” Hal Hall said. “Notre Dame was the unanimous choice to win the sectional, but man, we knew we were gonna get them. It was so loud. You couldn’t hear anything. We were ready. It was a fun game.”

A report in The Herald-Whig noted the game was marred by a near riot as game officials Jack Lulay and Larry Wilcoxen tried to leave the floor.

“It was crazy,” Hal Hall said. “I’m not really sure what happened, but it was just chaos.”

Hamilton’s dream season ended at 25-4 with a 71-60 loss to Pleasant Plains in the super-sectional at Macomb. Foul trouble kept Hal Hall on the bench for much of the game, and the Cardinals fell behind by 18 points in the first half and never got closer than seven thereafter. 

“Every time I touched the ball, (Plains) had three guys flop,” Hall said. “I got a charging foul, and I had three damn fouls in the first quarter. So I was on the bench most the game.”

Hall is retired after working at a maintenance job for 30 years for Roquette in Keokuk, Iowa. He still lives in Hamilton and owns and operates Lucky’s Grub, Pub and Sports Bar in Keokuk.

He still believes Hamilton should have played in the state tournament in 1977.

“If we played Pleasant Plains 10 times, we probably beat them nine,” he said. “Now, if we played Notre Dame 10 times, we might win once or twice. We certainly had a lot of things go our way that night.”