A New Era Arrives For Hillcrest Hoops

article and photo by Paul D. Bowker, The News

The season-opening game for Hillcrest Academy’s boys basketball team last week (Dec. 2) was so different.

Yet it was the same.

For the first time in what seems a zillion years, the Ravens, or IMS before the big name change arrived, chased their opponents around the court, and they certainly did chase on this night, without Hall of Fame coach Dwight Gingerich directing things from his familiar seat on the bench.

Dwight won more than 700 high school games, all of them with Hillcrest and Iowa Mennonite School. That number, and that loyalty, may never be topped again. Anywhere.

He is now Athletic Director and men’s basketball head coach at Goshen College in Indiana.

Stephen Bender spent the last several years on that Hillcrest bench, clipboard in hand, as assistant coach beside Gingerich.

This year, as head coach, Bender is standing.

“I’m a stander,” he said. “I like to move up and down a little bit.”

He laughed.

“I can burn some calories. I’m getting older. I need to burn some calories.”

When Dwight actually stood, there was trouble. Big time.

As an assistant coach, high school rules prevented Bender from standing. No more. As the Ravens picked apart Highland, a Southeast Iowa Super Conference North rival in their season opener, Bender shouted out instructions and encouragement to his Ravens.

They rewarded their new coach with a 68-39 win.

Rowan Miller, a senior, scored 21 points. Kale Bailey, a junior, scored 20 points.

The Ravens outrebounded the Huskies, 33-21. Their defense forced 26 Highland turnovers.

Easy.

Well, maybe ….

“We missed some bunnies, some layups and shots that we normally, I think, are going to make,” Bender said. “There’s definitely some stuff that needs improving on. We played quite a bit of zone (defense) early. It was pretty good, but there’s a few breakdowns that we just need to correct.”

There were no game balls on this night.

No championship hugs for the new head coach.

Just handshakes.

It was just basketball. It’s the Hillcrest Academy way, a tradition that goes back for decades and includes a string of winning seasons that totals more than 20 consecutive years now. Last year, when Bender’s son, Mason, played his last year, the Ravens won 21 games and reached a 1A district final.

There is winning.

And there is winning.

“I love basketball,” Bender said. “I want to win. But there’s more important things in life. I get excited. I love the kids getting excited, but the biggest thing that we want to do is we want to make sure we’re having a good impact on the kids. The way they come out on the court, the way that represents the school well.”

They’re coaching young men to actually be young men. Basketball just comes with it.

Those outlooks go right into the heart of Hillcrest’s game, defense. Oh, the Ravens have always had scorers. But defense has won those games.

“Everyone loves to score,” Bender said, “but not everyone loves to play defense. We love to play defense. When you’re out there, you want to play defense as much as you want to play offense. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do.”

As Bender stands, he’s directing that defense. He is a musical conductor, except he’s the maestro chasing basketballs and not musical notes.

Opening night certainly delivered that defense.

It did not deliver a stomach full of nervous butterflies.

“I’ve coached so many games in my life,” Bender said. “I wasn’t. I’ve been more nervous.”

Like, say, the third of December in 2013 when Bender began a six-year run as the girls basketball head coach at Mid-Prairie. The Golden Hawks reached the state tournament in 2016, but on that night in December 2013, Bender’s first night as coach, the Golden Hawks lost to Washington by 10.

While Mid-Prairie lost its first three games in 2013 on the way to an eventual winning record, the Ravens won their first four games of the season over the last two weeks.

Perfect.

Here is a link to the original article.

The News columnist Paul Bowker can be reached at bowkerpaul1@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @bowkerpaul