Smithpeters: Overachievers rewarded for hard work
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The jerseys that had been worn since November were folded on a couch. Harrisburg's regional championship plaque leaned on the desk in Randy Smithpeters' office. And the locker room that had been boisterous in celebration a week ago was now quiet.
Smithpeters' Bulldogs were a day removed from a 67-53 loss against Murphysboro at the Herrin Sectional, yet the Harrisburg head coach had nothing but positives to say about the season that had just ended as he reflected on Wednesday afternoon.
"People in our locker room thought we'd be over .500. We lost that opener to Carmi and people didn't think we'd get to .500," Smithpeters recalled. "And we're sitting here at 24-8 and that's one of the best records we've had here in a long time."
The 24 wins was a six-game improvement from the 2008-09 squad, and the most wins for a Smithpeters-coached team since the 2001-02 team posted a 24-5 record en route to a regional title.
Smithpeters has had each of his sons - Kyle, Kolby, Matt, Ryan and Tyler - each on a team that has won a regional championship.
In a season in which the team gelled quickly after a stunning opening night loss to Carmi-White County on its home court at its own tournament, the Bulldogs were peppered with individual accomplishments.
Harrisburg added a new member to the 1,000-point club as Cain Sheldon finished his career as the second leading scorer in Bulldogs history, only looking up at Dale Overstreet, whose No. 1 spot is safe, for now.
Though, Sheldon might go down in history if he can get royalties for a shot he coined in his four-year Harrisburg career.
"We have a term we call here the Cain Sheldon shot," Smithpeters said with a chuckle. "Because he dribbles into traffic and you can't do anything and have no hope of getting anything out of it and Cain scores a basket."
Fellow senior Lucas Elverd finished his career with a flurry of swatted shots. The 6-foot-7-inch center blocked eight shots in Tuesday's loss, giving him 109 rejections on the season. Elverd is the only known Bulldog to have surpassed the 100-block total in a single season.
Smithpeters said other coaches took note of Elverd's improvement on the defensive end of the floor.
"They talked about how far he had developed this season as far as a defender. Early in the season he was out of position to defend and not into a position to block shots. He's worked really hard to get better at both of those," Smithpeters said. "That was a tremendous factor for our team down the stretch. It got to the point where a lot of teams would go down the lane and wouldn't worry about the guy they were getting by, but the guy they were going to run into."
For all of its accomplishments, Smithpeters said what made the 24-win team season special was the roster itself.
"The thing for me that made this season so enjoyable was that this was a group that got along well. That was something that some of the younger players were concerned associating with juniors and seniors. It doesn't get much better than that," Smithpeters said.