50 After 50: No. 37 Cardinals help bring communities together after historic flood during summer of 1993

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. 37 — 1993-94 West Pike

KINDERHOOK, Ill. — For three years during the mid-1990s, West Pike was the king of west-central Illinois basketball, winning 84 out of 90 games.

It was a far cry from the days of when the Cardinals posted a combined record of 57-219 during a 12-year stretch from 1975-87. 

“It was rough during the (early) 1980s,” said Kirk Mosley, a junior guard on the 1994 West Pike team. “It just seemed like we went through a lot of coaches. When (Steve) Joslyn came there (to coach in 1989-80), he was the fourth coach in four years. We were competitive in the late 80s, but before that, it was not pretty.”

It wasn’t pretty in Pike County during the summer of 1993, either.

The rising waters of the Mississippi River kept residents in the northwest Pike County communities of Kinderhook, Hull and New Canton on edge. When the Sny Island Levee broke on July 25, 1993, thousands of acres of farmland were overwhelmed by the historic flood. Many people lost their jobs or were forced to drive hours for trips that normally required a few minutes.

The West Pike team was playing in a tournament in Clearwater, Fla., when it heard the news.

“It was hard for me as a 16- or 17-year-old kid to comprehend,” Mosley said. “It wasn’t my family’s house, but it affected the families of my teammates. It was kind of a surreal feeling. We were thinking we were going to go play basketball, but everybody else back home is dealing with this.

“We had five or six guys, maybe half the team, who lost their houses. I know a couple of them had to live in different places. I think someone had to live in Payson as they rebuilt their home. They had to get portable classrooms and put them (at the high school) in Kinderhook because the elementary school in Hull had flooded.”

Even Cardinals coach Steve Joslyn had to live in a FEMA trailer on the high school property.

“He could sleep in a little bit more and still get to school on time,” Mosley said with a laugh.

The success of the West Pike basketball team the following winter helped area families get through those difficult days and eventually recover.

The Cardinals went 24-2 in 1992-93, losing in the regional championship game to Payson Seymour. Expectations entering the 1993-94 were high, even for a school of just 98 students. West Pike went undefeated during the regular season, averaging 85.7 points per game while allowing just 54. Junior Marty Hull averaged 19 points and nine rebounds per game, and senior Jamie Wilson added 16.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. They were ranked fifth in the final Class A regular season poll.

West Pike survived a brutal regional, which had five teams with at least 17 victories. The Cardinals defeated Liberty 71-56 in the semifinals, then beat Payson Seymour 76-69 in the title game. It was the school’s first regional title in the two-class system and the first postseason crown since 1946 when Kinderhook High School on the “small-school” district tournament.

“You could have broken in any house in any of the three communities that night,” Mosley said. “Everybody was there, and everybody was super supportive. We’ve gone through the flood of ’93, so that tragedy really brought the community together. I just remember everybody just working together. It was a great feeling in the community. 

“Our goal was to win the regional that year, but to be honest, I don’t know that we set our sights high enough.”

The Cardinals’ season ended at 28-1 after a 69-55 loss to Hamilton in the sectional opener at Bushnell. 

“I think we maybe celebrated the regional title a little too much. We were pretty happy with that,” Mosley said. “It’s not that we didn’t take the next game serious, but I think we maybe felt we’d already reached our goal.”

Mosley went on to coach and teach at West Pike, Western and Payson Seymour before a three-year stint as an account executive at WGEM. He’s now in his sixth year as a physical education teacher at Quincy’s Baldwin School.

Nearly 30 years after West Pike’s remarkable run, Mosley says he didn’t appreciate how good those teams were when he played on them.

“I think back about all the time we put in, coming in during there summer and before school to do our shooting and all that,” he said. “Looking back, I remember how good it was for the community and bringing everybody together after the flood. It was just a great, great thing.”