BY JACK BULLOCK
Looking back the 1988-89 basketball season in Illinois was a memorable one for many great teams.

The Carlyle Indians managed to get out of one of the toughest areas in the state to the Elite Eight where they won the Class A state championship.

This completed a double-dip for the school year as they also won the 3A football championship in the fall.

A week after Carlyle won the Class A championship, East St. Louis Lincoln won its third consecutive Class AA title.

Also, if you go up a level, this school year produced arguably the best University of Illinois men's basketball team.

Nicknamed the “Flying Illini” this club reached the NCAA Final Four.

However as with all seasons there are stories of teams falling short of achieving the ultimate goal.

The Birds (pun intended) were “flying high” under head coach Darrell Burd.

In Coach Burd's two different stints as head coach at Southwestern, he was 248-104 in 13 total years.

In his tenure Burd's Birds won seven regional titles and one sectional championship (1977-78).

But perhaps his best club was the 1988-89 squad.

Southwestern was a team with size, good guard play and a deep bench.

The Birds ran through the regular season 25-0.

Piasa Southwestern captured championships in its two tournaments; the Freeburg/Columbia Holiday Tournament and the annual Macoupin County Tournament.

A quick look at their schedule shows that they beat three Class AA schools that year; Jerseyville (11-17), Civic Memorial (11-15) and twice defeated Triad (19-12).

They beat 19-7 Bunker Hill three times, including in the Macoupin County title game.

Southwestern also ran through the South Central Conference unbeaten.

The Birds beat the teams that they played, many convincingly.

They won a December game against White Hall-North Greene on the road, 79-68.

Coach Burd had weapons as they averaged 75.1 points a game.

Six-foot-five junior power forward Shaun Watson was the top scorer on the club with 18.4 points and 8.8 rebounds a game on average.

He was also one of the area's best free throw shooters with an 81.2 percent success rate.
His 1,215 career points rank third in the school's all-time history.

Another junior starter for Coach Burd was 6-foot guard Todd Kunz who chipped in 16.6 points a night for Southwestern.

In the post was 6-foot-3 senior Pat Marshall (15.1 p.p.g./9.0 r.p.g.).

Powell led the Birds with 6.9 assists a game while Grigg dished out 6.5 assists a game.

Chad Cruthis, a 5-foot-10 senior guard, was the first player off of the Southwestern bench.

Six-foot-one junior Jason Isringhausen was also a key reserve player on the Birds.

Many years later Isringhausen played for another team of birds as his major league baseball travels included a stay with the St. Louis Cardinals as one of the top closers in baseball.

Isringhausen spent 16 seasons in the major leagues with the Mets, Athletics, Cardinals, Rays and Angels.

Senior guard 6-foot Gary Bowker was also one of the players that added depth to the squad along with 6-foot-1 classmate Rich Lawson and Matt Buhs, a 5-foot-11 junior.

Buhs was also in professional baseball in the Texas Rangers organization.

Grigg went on and played at McKendree College and later was a head coach at Triad.

Both Cruthis and Bowker played basketball at Illinois College and then later had success as head coaches in both boy's and girl's basketball at Lebanon and Pana respectively.

Coach Bowker took a pair of boy's teams to the Elite Eight, finishing second in 2001.

After a stint as boy's coach at Lebanon, Coach Cruthis took over the girl's program and won five consecutive regional championship and took the Lady Greyhounds to the state finals in 2017-18 where they finished third with a program record 32-3.

Chuck Powell stayed in sports in the broadcasting field and he is currently a sports radio host in Seattle, Washington.

Southwestern, in other words, was primed for a run to Champaign.

Coach Burd's Birds finally got some much earned respect in the final week of the regular season as they were moved to the top of the Associated Press Class A state poll ahead of Springfield Calvary and eventual champions Carlyle.

Prairie Central was the top team the previous two weeks before losing a game late in the season.

Those four teams were the only ones ranked number one during the 1988-89 campaign.

The Game

When the two teams met it was in front of a sold out crowd at North Greene with a unique twist to what was happening in boy's high school basketball during this era and created a bit of controversy.

Illinois was one of the last states to switch completely to rectangular shaped basketball backboards and not all schools had made the change from the fan shaped backboards in 1989.

North Greene High School had not made the switch yet when they hosted the regional in 1989.

“They actually shouldn't have been able to host a regional because they hadn't changed their fan backboards to the rectangular ones,” said Todd Grigg recently. “It was the first year that it was mandatory. They changed them out the next week to practice for the state tournament.”

All things were going as planned for Piasa Southwestern in the first half of the regional championship game.

Hitting 5-of-7 3-point shots in the first two quarters, the Birds led North Greene 39-30 at intermission.

But the second half things began to unravel for the top-ranked team.

Coach Burd's club went 'stone cold' in the final 16 minutes which allowed the Spartans back into the contest.

Southwestern hit just 7-of-30 field goal attempts in the second half and were just 2-of-15 in the fourth quarter.

“We just didn't shoot like we are capable of shooting,” said Southwestern head coach Coach Darrell Burd after the game. “We haven't shot the ball well for a couple of weeks. I don't know what it is. That's our bread and butter. If those shots don't fall, we don't win.”

Jason Devino scored on the next North Greene possession before Shaun Watson nailed down a 3-pointer to even the score at 53-53.

Pat Marshall scored for Piasa with 1:30 in the fourth quarter to cut the North Greene lead to just 62-61 but Piasa failed on on three consecutive possessions to take the lead.

Southwestern turned the ball over on two straight possessions but the Spartans couldn't score either.

One of the turnovers was a steal by Josh Smith, a North Greene reserve, who was fouled on a driving lay up with :17 remaining.

But Smith missed both pressure packed free throws and Southwestern then had a final chance.

Watson found himself open for a 3-pointer from the wing but his attempt bounced off of the rim as the horn sounded, ending the undefeated season for Piasa.

“They were the number one ranked team but we played them before and I just didn't feel they were better,” Coach Stone told the Alton Telegraph after the game. “I don't consider this an upset. But I really feel sorry for them. It's got to really hurt. They had a fine season but you could just see the pressure on them.”

As mentioned earlier, North Greene made it all the way to Champaign with two more 'on-paper' upsets.

They took care of state-ranked Jacksonville Routt in the sectional semifinals, revenging an earlier season 'rout' at the hand of the Rockets.

After topping Griggsville in the sectional championship at Petersburg PORTA, the Spartans edged state-ranked Quincy Notre Dame to reach the finals.

“At least White Hall made it to the Elite Eight. We had beat them at home but playing in that small gym they had was a tough place and we just didn’t shoot it well that night,” said Chad Cruthis.

Carlyle used a big second half to end the North Greene campaign at 28-5.

“They (North Greene) were a good team and had three players play in college. But we couldn't have played much worse that night,” said Todd Grigg.

His six season record at Piasa was 31-21-3 from 1966-71.

He also mentored at the junior high level at North Greene before taking over the high school boy's basketball program.

He was 61-28 in three seasons coaching North Greene boy's basketball with the state run being his best postseason showing.

Coach Stone passed away in 2009 at age 73 after a long battle with cancer.

Coach Darrell Burd has long since retired and lives in Florida.

He finished his second stint at Piasa Southwestern with a 137-51 mark in seven seasons as head coach, with the last four all producing 20-plus wins (98-15) and two regional championships.

Some Redemption

The following year, with several of the players returning, the Birds got their second regional championship with a 72-68 win over Carrollton in the finals of the Class A Southwestern Regional.

The next game they lost to Pittsfield, 60-55.

The Saukees, like North Greene had done the previous season, rolled all the way to the Elite Eight.

A year later Pittsfield won the state title (1991).

Behind Buhs, Isringhausen and Watson, the Birds made it to the Class A baseball state tournament in 1990.

Southwestern ended up 25-4 for the season, finishing fourth in the state tournament.

All three of those standouts were drafted by major league baseball teams with Isringhausen playing 16 seasons in the big leagues.