After early season win, DeKalb looks to topple Sycamore in trophy game at NIU

The DeKalb girls basketball team already ended a 16-game losing streak to Sycamore earlier this season at an early season tournament at Burlington Central.

So with a rematch coming up Friday in the trophy game at the Northern Illinois University Convocation Center, in which the Spartans have won 10 straight against the Barbs, what does that first win mean to DeKalb?

“Pretrials. Preliminary. We don’t count that,” said DeKalb senior forward Kezaria Mitchell, who had nine points last season against the Spartans in a 58-41 loss at the Convo. “But this is all-out. We know it’s going to be a much different environment.”

The Barbs (15-9) last won against the Spartans (8-16) at the Convocation Center in the 2014 game, winning 59-51.

But they’ve been surging this year, matching their win total from last year. DeKalb could potentially reach 20 wins in a season for the first time since the 2011-2012 season, according to online records.

“This is always a real big game for everyone,” DeKalb coach Bradley Bjelk said. “So the girls are really excited. There’s been a lot of talk, we’ve been playing pretty well. We had a tough game last night [a 76-33 loss to Class 4A No. 8-ranked Waubonsie Valley (22-1)], but I think everybody is really confident coming in.”

The Spartans are going through a youth movement, with freshman Sadie Lang and sophomore Quinn Carrier leading the team in scoring. Carrier had 12 points and five rebounds earlier this year against the Barbs, while Lang had 10 points and a game-best eight rebounds.

Carrier had 11 points for the Spartans last season as a freshman at the Convo.

“The great thing about the Convo game is that ... records don’t matter,” Sycamore coach Adam Wickness said “You can throw all that out the window. It’s a very unique experience where you have to deal with the circus atmosphere. I know it’s been very one-sided, but DeKalb has played us tough there on multiple occasions when we’ve had quote-on-quote a better team heading into that game. Anything can happen.”

In the Nov. 23 meeting in Burlington, the victory for the Barbs came in the silver bracket title game at the Mark Einwich Tournament. Sycamore led 15-9 after a quarter and a half, but DeKalb went on a 16-0 run between the second and third quarters to take control.

Alicia Johnson had 12 points, four rebounds and two steals in the win. Johnna Patrick had 15 points and four steals, while Olivia Schermerhorn added four steals.

“I mean it’s good, but also from a coaching perspective it’s always hard to beat a team twice,” Bjelk said. “While it probably gave us some confidence, I definitely know Sycamore is a much improved team. At that time they were pretty young and now all those girls have a lot more experience. So I expect it to be a very competitive game.”

Wickness said it’s been an up-and-down year for the Spartans in large part due to the youth.

But he added he liked how his team has played in the new year and said his team knows it’s in a different position than in the past. The 2011-2012 season was the last time the Spartans had a losing record and they’ve won 20 games in every full season since 2012-2013.

“If there were gambling on high school basketball games we’d be the odds-on underdogs for sure,” Wickness said. “We have to take that approach. We know DeKalb is a good team. We’ve seen them enough over the course of the [years], we’ve kept tabs on how they’re doing. We know they’re tough, and tough all the time, doesn’t matter if it was this year, last year, two years ago. We know this game is going to be a tough matchup. There’s a lot more at stake.”