GENOA — The Byron basketball team began its road to the sectional tournament at the IHSA 2A Genoa-Kingston Regional, where the No. 1 seeded Tigers showed dominance in each of their games to take home their first regional championship since the 2017-18 season.
Byron (27-2, 8-1 Big Northern) had minimal trouble against No. 9 seed Woodstock Marian in the semifinal round, with senior guard and Benedictine University commit Ryan Tucker scoring a team-high 20 points while sophomore guard Cason Newton added 16 points in a 67-36 victory over the Hurricanes. Senior guards Jack Hiveley and Carson Buser combined for 20 points in the semifinal win.
“We have a target on our backs, but we’re defending ourselves pretty well,” Tucker said. “We don’t focus on the pressure or the hype. We just focus on playing our game and our goals are to get the job done and move on. We shot the ball pretty well, but we got a lot of fastbreak points and our defense was a staple during the regional. We scored a lot of points off of our defense, but once we were able to run our offensive sets, we were able to knock down shots.”
Byron battled No. 4 seed Johnsburg in the regional finals on Feb. 23, once again showing dominance as the Tigers smothered the Skyhawks for a 62-31 win. Three Byron players finished in double figures, with Newton scoring a team-high 17 points while Tucker added 16 points and Considine chipped in 12 points off the bench. Buser and Hiveley combined for 10 points.
“Some people might say that getting the No. 1 seed makes the regional easier, but that wasn’t the case,” Buser said. “It’s just a number and we know that we’re going to play a tough team no matter what because it’s a win-or-go-home game and whoever fights harder will win. A key point for us is our defense and we work on our defense a lot in practice. We have really talented players in our program and they help us feel ready for when we have games like these.”
