North Boone boys’ must find wins

By Chris Johnson

REPORTER

There isn’t an easy way to address the challenges facing the North Boone Vikings boys’ basketball team. It is known that a lot of change happens at times and adjustments are made to account for that. Sometimes those adjustments don’t appear in the stat-book at the end of the day but start to show up over time.

A string of losses have already been worked through. The regular season still shows three weeks to go. A lot of signs seem to indicate time exists for North Boone to make a final push to become more prepared for the post-season and their second chance. Some coaches have said good things can happen because of desire, hard work, strong support, and a lot of luck.

The Vikings faced the Winnebago Indians on Tuesday, Jan. 10 and had a non-conference meeting with Richmond-Burton on the road on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

Road games at Rock Falls and Mendota will be played on Saturday, Jan. 21 and Tuesday, Jan. 24 before a shift in the schedule brings an on and off again schedule of home and away games to North Boone until winding down on Friday, Feb. 10 at Rockford Lutheran.

Things settle for the Vikings as the close of the season approaches. If the advantage of “home field” can help, the three-game stretch will be good for North Boone. It provides a more supportive environment to try to work out a few final things before the post-season presents itself.

The season-ending home stand features scheduled meetings with Big Northern rivals Christian Life on Monday, Feb. 13 and Stillman Valley On Friday, Feb. 17.

North Boone will run the final plays of the winter sports’ season at home as they play host to the current Big Northern co-conference leaders, the Genoa-Kingston Cogs.

The Class 2A playoff pairings haven’t been set yet but are expected to be completed before the final week of regular-season action concludes.

Byron will host the Class 2A Sectional Championship this year and the IHSA Selection Committee will have sorted through the many teams available to try to fill the brackets for the upcoming Class 2A State Tournament before everything settles down.

With the current field playing in the Byron Sectional Complex, North Boone could end up opening the state tournament at Rockford Christian with possible opponents from a list which includes Byron, Oregon, South Beloit, and Winnebago.

The Regional Champions from Rockford Christian, Morrison, Kewanee, and Aledo-Mercer County will do battle in Byron in an attempt to see who is going to be left standing and given the golden ticket to Northern Illinois University for the Class 2A Super-Sectional Title.