Top 10 DeKalb County sports stories of 2020

When it comes to athletics, 2020 will forever be remembered as a year where sports took a back seat to public safety.

But amid all the cancelations and shortened seasons, some sports and some semblance of normal soldiered on.

And though time in 2020 seemed fluid, there was a whole three months this year during which games were played without the knowledge of the oncoming COVID-19 pandemic.

Below are the Daily Chronicle’s biggest sports stories in DeKalb County for 2020, a year that should permanently retire the phrase “a year like no other.”

1. Indian Creek makes historic run

It would be easy to focus on the cancelations and the negative for 2020. But before social distancing became a standard phrase, the Indian Creek boys basketball team was putting together a run unlike anything the program had seen before.

The Timberwolves won the first 35 games of the season, surging into the Class 1A DeKalb Super-Sectional. But that’s where the momentum ran out, as they lost to an Aurora Christian team they had already beat in the regular season.

After the loss, coach Joe Piekarz said the team and the run was a special one as the program won a sectional for the first time since the school opened in 1993.

“Whether we would have lost tonight, in a sectional game, state final game or won the whole thing, they have done so much more,” Piekarz said. “They have captured the community. They have captured the neighboring communities. They are an easy team to root for. And that says a lot, not just how they are basketball players, but how they are as kids and people. They do everything the way it should be done.”

As it turned out, the Timberwolves would not have lost in a state tournament. The IHSA ended up canceling the finale.

2. Football fields go empty in the fall

The list of associations can go on forever, but the fact is for many people and high schools communities, football is fall.

Not this year, however.

Back in July the IHSA announced a new-look sports schedule. In it, football was moved to the spring, with a start date of March 5. The schedule was designed in a way so that all sports could move forward in the year, something that’s getting dicey now with basketball on a seeming indefinite pause.

DeKalb football coach Keith Snyder said he didn’t want what happened in the spring, with mass cancelations wiping out entire seasons, to happen again as neighboring states plowed ahead with seasons.

“You can say you’re going to do it but you have no idea what’s going to happen once you get into it,” Snyder said. “Sure it looks good on paper but a lot of things looked good on paper six months ago. Then we learned things change at the last second. This is the best chance to give ourselves three different seasons. We got shortchanged last year but now this gives us the best chance to make sure what happened to the Class of 2020 doesn’t happen again. That’s what I’m most excited about.”

3. Tumultuous two weeks for NIU football, going from quarantine to practicing

On Sept. 18, Northern Illinois University announced its football team was one of three teams in a quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure, and the MAC had no plans for a football season.

By Oct. 5, the team was not only out of quarantine but practicing for a late-announced season.

While the Huskies were quarantining, the MAC announced it would play a six-game schedule in the fall.

NIU athletic director Sean Frazier, who had been at the forefront of pushing for caution when it came to fall sports, said the availability of rapid testing was a game-changer.

“Do I think we can sputter and shut down based on the robust protocol? Absolutely,” Frazier said. “It might happen, but I feel much more comfortable in what we’re doing to screen, mitigate and protect than I did a month and a half ago. COVID-19 is here. We’re going to have to adjust to it; we’re going to have to deal with it. There are no guarantees for now or the spring.”

The Huskies were able to play their full six-game slate, and according to the school did not have a positive test during the season.

4. Different looking fall season goes on for swimming, golf, cross country, tennis

Spectators were limited. Masks were worn by the ones at events, and sometimes the athletes themselves. And there was no state tournament.

As weird as the 2020 fall season was, there was still a 2020 fall season.

There was still a postseason, as athletes from across the state put up times that would have, in a normal year, secured a spot in the state tournament

DeKalb cross country runner Riley Newport, who was named the Chronicle’s boys runner of the year, said it was disappointing not to have a postseason.

“I guess that’s kind of the world we live in right now,” Newport said. “I was thankful that we had a season at least. I was happy with my performance and I just wish there was a state meet.”

And the full pause to the winter season showed just how unique it was to get the fall sports played.

5. DeKalb boys win the DVC

When DeKalb announced it was joining the DuPage Valley Conference starting in 2019, school board members were asking if it was physically safe for the Barbs to compete against larger schools.

Two years later, the Barbs proved they were the danger.

The football team still made the playoffs in 2019 in its first DVC season, and when it came time for the basketball team to open DVC play, they were crowned conference champions in February.

“It’s an exciting feeling,” DeKalb coach Mike Reynolds said. “I remember when they were asking me in the interview. I said I’ve always been good as the underdog. We were the underdogs in the league.”

The Barbs finished 24-8 on the year and 8-2 in the DVC.

6. NIU football goes winless

Even without a raging pandemic, 2020 was going to be a very different year for the NIU football team.

The Huskies started eight true freshmen in their finale against Eastern Michigan, and the final two-deep depth chart of the season listed 18 true freshmen and eight redshirt freshmen. They had the second-highest percentage of underclassmen on their roster of any FBS team at 73%, behind only Oregon (73.6%).

So it ended up being the Huskies’ first winless season since 1997, even though it was just six games long.

And although there were the positive tests and the quarantine ahead of the season, the Huskies went through the season without a positive COVID-19 test according to the school.

“One thing I’ve taken from this year is, if you can get through this season, every other season should be a piece of cake,” second-year head coach Thomas Hammock said. “I told our guys, this may be the hardest thing you ever have to experience, and not necessarily from a football standpoint. I mean, the whole country was in a quarantine. If you can get through all these situations, it’s going to help you in life and it’s certainly going to help you on the football field.”

7. NIU men win MAC west, but then the postseason is canceled

Things were setting up nicely for the men’s basketball team heading into Cleveland for the MAC tournament.

They were co-MAC West champs. They had one of the best players in the league in Eugene German. They had a first-round bye for the first time in the tenure of Mark Montgomery, who is now in his 10th year at the helm of the Huskies.

For a while, it was looking like the tournament would go on without fans. But the day of NIU’s first game, March 12, the league announced it was not only axing the tourney, but spring sports as well.

At media day in November, players said they felt like they lost a chance but were ready for a new one.

“We’re going to come in with the same mentality, ready to work,” Cochran said. “Now we’re picked 10th, we come in as the underdogs and work 10 times harder.”

The team finished the 2020 portion of this season’s schedule 1-7.

8. DeKalb wrestling makes some more history

There may not have been a champion or team hardware, but there was still history for the DeKalb wrestling team.

The Barbs had six wrestlers take medals at the Class 3A State Tournament in February, setting a school record. The team also qualified for team state and reached the quarterfinals.

Fabian Lopez, Bradley Gillum and Tommy Curran led the Barbs with second-place finishes at state. Danny Curran, Damien Lopez and Ben Aranda also picked up medals.

“A lot of kids stepped up to have as good a season as we had,” coach Sam Hiatt said. “A lot of kids overcame bumps in the road to get where they want at the end of the year.”

9. Sycamore girls fall just short of super-sectional

The Sycamore girls were behind 12 early to Montini in the Class 3A Hampshire Sectional final, led in the fourth, but ended up losing the roller coaster game.

It capped a 27-7 year for the Spartans, which included winning the Interstate 8. And it put an end to the Sycamore career of Kylie Feuerbach, who was named the Daily Chronicle Girls Basketball Player of the Year of the third straight year.

Feuerbach left the program as the career leader in points, rebounds and steals.

Montini ended up third at the state tournament.

“Watching the games those girls were playing in, I was just thinking of how we could be there, so I think that upsets me a little bit,” Feuerbach said. “But I can’t be upset with this season at all because of the girls, the coaching, and just everything about this season, it’s been great. I think getting that state run would have been extremely memorable but even just going to the sectional final, it meant a lot. Having that last game be with such a large crowd and showing how important our community was to us, it meant a lot.”

Feuerbach is starting for Iowa State this year, averaging 7.1 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.

10. The Chuck Dayton Holiday Tournament is in danger after 92 consecutive years

The Dayton gym at DeKalb High this week is much, much different than usual this time of year.

Usually between Dec. 26 and 30 every year, 16 boys basketball teams from across the state participate in the Chuck Dayton Holiday Classic. The Barbs won the 92nd annual edition last year.

But this year the gym is empty as what the school calls the longest consecutively held holiday tournament in the state is in doubt.

Athletic director Peter Goff said if there’s a 2020-2021 basketball season, there will be a Dayton tournament in some form.

“I think it’s as important as having a season,” coach Mike Reynolds said. “That’s one of the things we’re going to make sure happens. ... I’m 99% sure unless the restrictions push the season so far back we’re going to work something out. It’s a tradition we want to go and, and its a tradition that fans - even though this season might happen without fans - have expected for 90-something years and we want to make it continues on our watch.”