50 After 50: No. 42 Indians set stage for program to enjoy consistent run of high-level success

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. 42 — 2012-13 Payson Seymour

PAYSON, Ill. — Brian Rea wanted his Payson Seymour boys basketball team to experience the state tournament atmosphere, even if their plans to be playing in Peoria ended one game shy of that goal.

So he booked hotel rooms, got tickets and took the Indians to Carver Arena to soak in everything during the 2013 Class 1A state tournament.

They even ended up in the same hotel as the team that eliminated them.

“The guys were in the hotel pool along with the players from Madison,” said Rea, who won 285 games over 11 seasons coaching at Payson and saw the Indians’ deepest postseason push end with a 66-60 loss to Madison in the super-sectionals that season.

“The Madison players were talking to Gage Klitz and saying to each other, ‘He’s the guy that dunked on you like three times in that game.’ They respected our kids and we respected them. We just made a couple of untimely errors or I truly believe we would have won that game.”

Win or lose, the 2012-13 squad’s success placed Payson in the realm of perennial contenders for years to come.

The 63-57 victory over Liberty in the regional championship was the Indians’ first postseason title of any kind since 1993. A 50-43 victory over Unity was the first sectional championship in program history. The Indians finished 27-5, matching the 1978-79 team for most victories in school history at the time.

That mark has since been broken, an accomplishment made possible by the breakthrough of the 2012-13 squad.

“That team showed everybody our capability of being an elite-level, small-school program,” rea said. “I think we built off of it from there.”

In the seven full seasons since, the Indians won 20 or more games six times and captured three regional championships. The 2019-20 team finished 32-3, establishing the single-season victory record. But Rea truly believes none of that would have been possible without the success in 2013.

“We had all the parts,” said Rea, who left after the 2020-21 season and is now coaching at Palmyra, Mo. “The kids accepted their role and played their role to a ‘T.’ They all fit together really well. We were still building at that point, but we had all the parts that you want. We had guys who did the dirty work. We had a leader. We had guys who could score. It worked really well together.”

Cody Hilldebrand, a junior guard, was the leading scorer at 21.2 points per game, and he added 2.3 assists. Senior guard Jake Voss was a double-digit scorer. Junior guard Lance Buhlig provided some grit, and senior Dalton Speckhart was like a Swiss army knife, doing whatever was necessary. Klitz was an above-the-rim presence coming off the bench.

“Their confidence level as we went on grew,” Rea said. “It’s probably the most balanced group I’ve ever had. That team just had all the parts that you needed.”