La Salle-Peru ‘going to give them everything we’ve got' as Cavs head to Washington Sectional

LA SALLE – The La Salle-Peru boys basketball team has held a record above the .500 mark exactly three full days this calendar year, going 8-7 over the 2024 portion of their schedule before opening 2025 with losses in four of their first five games.

What matters more now, however, is what the Cavaliers were holding on their home floor Friday night.

Another regional championship plaque.

Friday’s 49-46 upset victory over Streator in the Class 3A La Salle-Peru Regional championship game avenged a pair of losses to the Cavaliers' old rivals earlier in the season. There was a 58-57 defeat in the season opener at Ottawa’s Dean Riley Shootin' the Rock Tournament, and not quite two months later a 58-50 Jan. 14 loss in a nonconference meeting at Sellett Gym.

“Our team came in really hot, and we’d been preparing for this all week,” said freshman post Marion Persich, who came up with key buckets throughout Friday’s game to offset Streator’s repeated comeback attempts. “This is the game we wanted; this is the team we wanted to play.

“It feels amazing. We all played well. I love my team, I love all our fans. We’re going to go win the next one.”

That “next one” will come at 7 p.m. Wednesday when L-P (15-18) enters the 3A Washington Sectional to take on fellow regional champion Peoria High (27-6), the Big Twelve Conference’s runners-up and winners of 11 straight. That streak includes Friday’s 57-52 win over rival Richwoods to claim the 3A East Peoria Regional title.

The Cavaliers and Lions have not played this season. Their only common opponent is Washington, which La Salle-Peru lost to 49-39 on Jan. 18 and Peoria High defeated 61-47 a week later.

“We’re going to give them everything we’ve got,” said L-P coach John Senica, whose Cavaliers have won two 3A regional titles in his two years at the helm. “I think we’ve got a puncher’s chance. I do know the other teams that are in there, and all I can say is I think we’ve got a puncher’s chance. ...

“The kids, like I’ve said, are starting to jell. They’ve been doing the things they need to do, they’re executing, they’re finishing. I’m out of words. That’s how proud I am of them.”

Friday’s victory in a gutsy, physical contest saw the Cavaliers play just six players in the game as both L-P and Streator tightened up their rotations. In addition to Persich’s heroics, Mike Hartman scored eight points, Nick Olivero added five, Jameson Hill scored three points, and both Braylin Bond and Erick Sotelo finished with seven points.

It was Sotelo’s mid-court steal and drive the other way for an uncontested layup with 1:39 remaining that broke a tie and propelled the Cavaliers to the regional title.

“Amazing,” the junior said of his feelings after the game. “We wanted to give the seniors another regional championship. I knew we could [do this] at the start of the season, go back-to-back. There have been doubters all season, that we weren’t going to go back-to-back.

“We did.”

There are doubters still as L-P moves on to the Washington Sectional as one of just five teams across the state – three of them, curiously enough, in the Class 3A field – still alive with a sub-.500 record. The sectional starts Tuesday with the other semifinal, Kankakee (25-5) vs. Metamora (27-6).

“We know it’s going to be tough,” Sotelo said. “We’ve just got to prepare in practice. Keep practicing how we’ve been practicing, and we’ll get the same result.”