50 After 50: No. 28 Mustangs ‘didn’t dream high enough,’ fall short in super-sectional

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. 28 — 1972-73 Unity

MENDON, Ill. — Not long after the excitement of Unity’s undefeated run and appearance in the Class A super-sectional in 1990 had ended, the Mustangs faced one more challenge.

Were they as good as the 1972-73 Unity team that finished with a 27-3 record and also ended its season with a loss in the super-sectional?

There was only one way to find out. The 1973 and 1990 teams played an exhibition game as a fundraiser for the 1990 senior class trip.

“During the (1989-90) season, every time someone started talking about, ‘Well, you know what a really good team they are,’ someone would say, ‘Yeah, but you’re not as good as the 72-73 team,” said Greg Frazier, a senior on the 1972-73 team. “(The game) was a hoot. The 3-point line was in place, and that made a little difference. All of our core players were back, and Bob Gray, who had played for West Pike, played on our team as well. 

“We played them pretty good. What a better way to raise money than to have the community come out and watch these two teams. The gym was packed. Time has a way of changing people’s bodies and motion and all that other stuff, but we walked on and started playing, and it was déjà vu. It was like we picked up where we had left off.

“We lost, but we played right with them. It was the type of community support you like to see.”

The 1972-73 Mustangs had plenty of support during their senior season as well. Followers expected big things from a group of senior starters — Frazier, Greg Campbell, Ken Ellerbrock, Gene Hendrickson and Dave Parker — who had played together since the sixth grade at the grade school in Greenfield.

“Then when we got to high school, we got tied in with other guys from Mendon and Lima,” Frazier said. “Our success was using the zone press, basically from grade school and on up. We had a lineage of good coaches like Leigh Conover and Dean Woodruff and Dick Spohr. It was a lot of fun. That’s just plain and simple, but that’s kind of the root of what made our team great. We had a work ethic and everybody had to play together.

“Our goal our senior year was to win the regional.” 

Campbell averaged 19 points and nine rebounds per game, and Frazier added 18 points and eight rebounds per game. The defense routinely forced 20 or more turnovers each night. The Mustangs lost twice during the regular season — by eight points to West Pike in December and a one-point road loss to Southeastern in January.

However, Unity’s postseason run certainly wasn’t easy.

With Campbell sidelined for an ankle injury, the Mustangs held on to edge Central 45-42 in the first round of the regional at Mount Sterling. Frazier tipped in a missed free throw with 13 seconds left to help stave off the upset. 

Two nights later, Unity beat Quincy Catholic Boys 58-56. The Mustangs led by 11 midway through the third quarter, but the Raiders rallied to tie the score at 50 with 4:16 left to play. The score remained tied at 56 with 1:50 left to play, Campbell’s free throw with 50 seconds left and another by Parker with 15 seconds left provided the deciding points. CB missed a chance to tie the score when Eugene Stuckman’s five-footer rolled off the rim at the buzzer.

The Mustangs trailed by as many as six points in the fourth quarter of the regional title game against undefeated West Pike, but Campbell’s basket with 52 seconds left to play put Unity ahead for good in a 59-52 victory. The regional championship was the first since Mendon High School won one in 1939. 

“I recall there at the end that I had a shot from the corner, and Gray came out to block it,” said Frazier, who had 28 points. “I shot over his hands, and it went in. Remember those days, there was no 3-point shot, and (that shot) was probably in that region.”

Unity held off Bath Balyki 53-50 in the sectional opener at Quincy when Steve Turner made two free throws with five seconds remaining. The Mustangs then claimed the sectional title with a 56-54 victory over Southeastern. Campbell scored the winning basket with 1:15 remaining in the game. The Suns’ Rick Homan missed two chances to tie the score in the final 47 seconds.

“Southeastern was probably our toughest victory,” Frazier said. “They were always tough. It always was back and forth. They played a very similar style of basketball to what we did.”

Unity appeared to be well on its way to Champaign, taking a 16-point first half lead in the super-sectional game against Petersburg PORTA in Macomb’s Western Hall. However, the Mustangs gave up a season-high in points in a 77-72 loss.

The Bluejays’ Kevin Washington had 30 points, with 10 coming in the fourth quarter. Campbell had 35 for the Mustangs, who finished 27-3.

“That first quarter at the super was our peak,” said Frazier, who now lives in Bonita Springs, Fla. after retiring from a 40-year career in sales and marketing with John Deere in Bloomington, Minn. “We were like, holy crap, everything was dropping. We were like, this can’t be real. But (PORTA) had talent, and pressing on a college court obviously took a wear and tear on us. We just kind of ran out of gas. We tried to shut Washington down, and every time he moved, he switched his pivot foot. He traveled every time. 

“Our goal was to win the regional. So if anything, maybe we didn’t dream high enough.”