50 After 50: After failing to get out of regional with one-loss team, No. 31 Bulldogs follow up with undefeated regular season

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. 31 — 1981-82 Dallas City

DALLAS CITY, Ill. — The chance for a memorable season seemed to have slipped through Dallas City’s hands.

The Bulldogs, led by high-scoring guard Robbie Leake, finished the 1980-81 regular season with a 25-1 record. However, they lost 51-50 to Sciota Northwestern in the regional championship game on a tip-in with three seconds left. 

“We had one of the top five players ever in Dallas City in Leake, and we also had Brent Sparrow to go with Tim Logan and Rick Sartorious,” Bulldogs coach Mark Branscum said. “We were probably most loaded on that club in 1981.”

So when Dallas City started to prepare during the summer for the upcoming 1981-82 season, you could have excused Sartorius for being a little concerned.

“Tim and I were the only starters, and people were like, ‘Yeah, these guys should be OK,’” Sartorious said. “But I mean, nobody expected us to be that good. I remember in the summer league down in Quincy, we got our butts kicked by everybody. So even we were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll be OK.’ 

“It turned out that we ended up having a pretty good season.”

Dallas City won its first 27 games, beating opponents by an average of 15.6 points per game, and was ranked No. 15 in the final Class A regular season state poll. However, the Bulldogs will be remembered for how well they played in close games.

Dallas City won eight games by eight points or less. Two of them were over state-ranked teams from Iowa — 58-57 over West Point Marquette on Jan. 30, 1982, when Sartorious made the game-winning free throws with 56 seconds to play, and 60-58 over Cardinal Stritch on Jan. 19, 1982. 

“We played in Marquette’s gym, and it was the tiniest gym I think we ever played in,” Sartorious said. “It was packed to the rafters. They had people standing at the door who they didn’t let in. They took us down to the wire. The last thing I remember is their guy was inbounding the ball, and I jumped up and blocked it, and the game was over. I was like, holy crap, we got out of there alive.

“You know, we had several games like that. People asked me how we won so many games, and the difference was we didn’t get caught up in how many games we won. We just wanted to win the next game. We really didn’t care. We never said, ‘Oh, God, we’re 20 and 0.’ We weren’t expected to be that good.”

Sartorious led the team in scoring at 16.9 points per game. Logan averaged 13.6 points, 8.9 rebounds and 4.5 blocked shots per game. Brent Boyer chipped in 10.2 points and Rod Shipman added 9.7 points per game. 

“You had a group of kids who grew up playing basketball. That’s all we did,” Sartorious siad. “We didn’t have football in our school. All we did was play basketball. We all played together. When Branscum got a hold of us, he put us in situations to succeed. He was a big part of it. We all accepted our roles, whatever that role was.”

One accomplishment Sartorious is still proud of is that his Dallas City teams didn’t lose at home in four years, going 43-0.

“That was pretty special,” he said. “Tim and I were looked upon as the leaders of the team, and everybody knew we were going to get ours, but the others in our class stepped up. To be ranked was really special. Dallas City had never been ranked before.”

So when they played host to the regional, the Bulldogs were going to be tough to beat. They defeated LaHarpe 75-53 in the semifinals, then defeated Nauvoo-Colusa for the fourth time that season, scoring 61-48 decision in the championship game.

Up next in the sectional at Lewistown was Havana, ranked No. 7 in the final regular season state poll. The Ducks featured 6-foot-6 Bruce Sarnes, 6-6 Kevin King and 6-4 Trevor Trimpe, with 6-11 David King coming off the bench. Their only losses were with an injured Sarnes on the sidelines.

“We came out for warmups, and they come out with a 7-foot kid and two 6-6 guys, and we’re like, holy crap,” Sartorious said. “We had the jitters. Havana was really good. Those guys were big. They were huge.”

The Bulldogs were overwhelmed in the first half. Havana shot 66 percent from the field and took a 33-18 lead. However, Dallas City stormed back with its full-court press. Reserve Marty Huffman led a rally that got the Bulldogs within 45-41 with five minutes left to play, but they could get no closer in a 59-51 loss. 

Havana eventually finished fourth in the state tournament.

Sartorious now lives in Mount Pleasant, iowa, where he works in sales from home for OSG Communications, a global provider of customer engagement and payment solutions. He also is a high school basketball official in Iowa, working primarily for conferences in the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids areas.