20-20: Highland Park basketball teams both reach significant win total

High school basketball season ended in March, but the impact of that season at Highland Park High School will endure.

For the first time in a long time, the Giants boys and girls programs won at least 20 games apiece. How long? So long that HPHS athletics folks are digging into their archives to find out.

But to start, this season was the first 20-win campaign for both Highland Park coaches: fourth-year coach Ross Deutsch on the boys side and nine-year coach Jolie Bechtel on the girls. The boys last won 20 games in 2015 under coach Paul Harris, the school’s retiring athletic director. Bechtel thinks for the girls the last time was before then and maybe in the early 2010s.

Either way, the drought was significant, and Bechtel said the teams’ are supportive of each other, whether that’s coaches sharing insight or players attending the other team’s games.

“It’s really an exciting thing when both teams have seasons like we did,” she said. “And that support exists even when we don’t have seasons like we did.”

Girls go back-to-back in CSL North

Bechtel took the reins for the girls program in 2016. According to the IHSA’s digital records, the Giants have just one regional title (1990) to their name (though, some records may be missing). Bechtel led Highland Park to double-digit (between 10-12) wins in her first four seasons; then the Giants hit a rough patch. They won just one game in two seasons between 2020-2022.

But a rebound was quick. Bechtel and Highland Park went from one win to 12 in ’22-’23, and then the following season eclipsed the .500 mark (14-11) and won a league title (Central Suburban League North) for the first time in Bechtel’s tenure.

The Giants kept the good times rolling this season, repeating as CSL North champs (9-1 record) while posting a 20-8 overall record, their best in a long time.

“It was really exciting to win the conference again and we talked a lot about what it meant to have a 20-win season,” Bechtel said. “To get to that 20 was great and a lot of fun too. This was a really great group of kids.”

The Giants won their playoff opener — a dramatic 50-49 win against Leyden — to notch that 20th win, before falling to perennial power Maine South in the regional championship.

A key to Highland Park’s recent growth has been its roster mix of experience and youth — with talent, of course, serving as the glue. This season, the Giants started a senior (Maddie Reitmayer), two juniors (Reese Crosby and Miami Martinez), a sophomore (Kourtnie Halperin) and a freshman (Emily Calub). Four of the five saw varsity minutes in previous seasons.

“We were fairly young but with experience,” Bechtel said. “A lot of kids (previously) got to feel what it was like to win the conference and were set on making that happen again. The experience helped us a lot.”

Crosby, a 5-foot-10 guard, was a starter as a freshman and missed her sophomore year with an injury. Her return added size and ball-handling to a lineup that already had Halperin’s shooting, Martinez’s post presence, and Reitmayer’s inside-out game and leadership. Halperin, Martinez and Reitmayer were the team’s scoring leaders, all within a point or so of each other per game, Bechtel said.

The coach credited rookie Calub with steady play on both ends of the floor, which included her ability to guard the opposing team’s top perimeter player.

While the team will miss its seniors, like Reitmayer, it also will return a hefty dose of talent that also includes three other sophomores on this year’s varsity roster.

“We talk a lot about all the things that go into (consistent winning) that are not necessarily about what happens on the basketball court,” Bechtel said. “We talk about doing the little things and hopefully continuing to build off what we’ve done the past couple of years and keep it going.”

Senior sendoff

On the boys side, the 20-win campaign was a long time coming.

The Giants roster featured 12 seniors, including three three-year varsity talents, and one of them, Simon Moschin, became one of the best the program has ever seen.

Head coach Ross Deutsch recalled four years ago when incoming freshmen Moschin, Asher Diamond and Alex Kriser came to an HPHS basketball camp. Seeing their talents back then, he quickly elevated them to the sophomore level.

“As soon as sophomore year was over, they were with us (on varsity),” Deutsch said. “They endured some growing pains … gained invaluable experience and were the leaders of this (year’s) group.

“They are tremendous student-athletes, ambassadors for the program and really good players.”

The trio paced Highland Park to a 21-11 mark, the program’s best record in a decade (20-8 in 2014-’15), and a second-place finish (7-3) in the Central Suburban North behind Niles North (10-0 in conference).

The Giants topped Oak Park-River Forest in their playoff opener before falling to the eventual sectional champion and state qualifier Evanston in the regional championship.

Moschin completed an all-time Giants season, averaging 20 points, 4 rebounds and 3 steals per game while becoming the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,415 career points. Deutsch said while an amazing talent on the court, Moschin was a “better young man” off of it.

“He has left his mark in annals of Highland Park basketball,” Deutsch said. “His greatest quality by far is his humility and it’s genuine and sincere. … He lived for and played with and credited his teammates every step along the way.”

While his Giants finished with an impressive record, Deutsch said it was their commitment to the program — for better or for worse — that led them there.

Deutsch called Highland Park a “no-record program,” explaining that he and his staff preach meaning beyond wins and losses to build a resilient culture. Completing a 5-26 season in 2022-’23, the Giants had to have a deeper purpose to respond. And they did.

“It feels really good to see the results pay off while not solely focusing on winning at all costs,” he said. “I don’t know if we would have achieved what we did if we strictly looked at the 5-26 record. It’s just bigger than that.

He added, “Not that we don’t care about our record, we do, but despite your team’s record, your relationships and memories created are forever. Those are the staples of Highland Park basketball. It’s special.”

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