Ralston proud of Geneva's team-first mindset

The start of Geneva's boys basketball season was "brutal," said Vikings senior point guard Pace Temple.

That doesn't jibe with a team that shortly takes the court at Peoria's Carver Arena to play in a Class 4A state semifinal. But while Temple's teammates were getting off to a 10-2 start in the regular season, he was watching.

For a competitor such as he, being sidelined while recuperating from a torn medial collateral ligament in Geneva's Class 7A semifinal football loss to Cary-Grove was hard to handle.

"I definitely felt like I wanted to try to come back earlier," said Temple, the Butler receiver recruit who will be rooming with Geneva teammate Matt Loberg, the defensive end.

"But at the same time, if I come back early and get hurt again that wouldn't help anybody," Temple said while riding the Peoria-bound team bus Thursday morning.

Acting on doctor's advice, Temple recovered without surgery. His first varsity basketball game this season was an 8-point effort in a 57-45 win over Larkin on Jan. 10. The Vikings have gone 20-1 since his return.

"My teammates were great, supportive," he said. "They pushed me and got me back to where I need to be."

"Teammates" is the word Vikings coach Phil Ralston uses at the end of each of his emails before his name, where most people write "Best wishes" or some other salutation.

Teammates - and the end of their time together as teammates at Geneva - have helped inform Geneva's push on the hard court.

"Since this is the last sport, there's nothing after this," said forward Mike Landi, who also needed a breather before basketball, three weeks, after a concussion suffered against Cary-Grove. Intramurals likely will be his calling in college, probably at Iowa he said.

"I think that gave me more drive, I wanted to get back so bad," Landi said of coming a game short of a state championship berth.

"We always knew we had a talented group," he said. "We definitely talked about going to state, but I don't think it really crossed my mind until we had our send off this morning."

While Landi, Temple and senior guard Jake Rocks all said there was some carry-over from football to basketball - whether the incentive was being denied a title game bid or the confidence gained during a great football season - Ralston wasn't so sure.

If football had an impact he believed it was in getting the likes of Temple and Landi healthy enough to practice and play. Basketball players get their share of nagging injuries during a 30-game season, but rarely do they nag as hard as football injuries.

Rocks, Temple, Landi, guard Daniel Santacaterina, guard Sean Chambers, forward Stephen Moyer and center Loudon Vollbrecht, who had his own back issue around Christmastime, all came off four solid months of football, not counting early summer sessions.

"It was part of our unfortunate issues that we dealt with throughout the season, where we had guys injured here and there and somehow, some way we were able to survive it and even thrive in it," Ralston said.

Geneva has a large varsity roster, 19 players. Ralston insists they all have had a role in this team getting where it's at. For Rocks, who typically guards either Temple or Chambers in practice, part of that meant getting the injured Temple back on his game.

"I just worked my hardest to (help) Pace back to his full strength coming back from injury. When his knee was sore I would pull up to make sure he wasn't pushing himself too hard," Rocks said.

"We work really hard in practice, push them to their limits and get them ready to play the game," said Rocks, who also noted the motivation of last season's sectional final loss to Benet.

"It's an honor to be part of this team, one of the best in Geneva history. It's fun to be part of the ride."

Obviously, despite Temple's personal assessment of his early-season experience, it's been far from brutal. A group Ralston terms "a band of characters," whether it's the program's all-time leading scorer, Nate Navigato, or 15-game players such as Rocks, forward Ben Stahl or the coach's own son, guard Ryan Ralston, they've gelled to form Phil Ralston's favorite salutation - "teammates."

"We're trying to sell the kids that what we have is very special and unique and sometimes you have to give up the personal for what is greater for the team," the coach said. "For the most part I think the kids have kind of understood that. It doesn't happen every year."

New pastures

Ron Ahrens, who coached Mooseheart to its sole team state championship to date when the Red Ramblers boys basketball team won the 2014 Class 1A title, has resigned as head coach and Mooseheart's director of residential living.

Ace Daily Herald correspondent and Moose International spokesman Darryl Mellema tells us Ahrens has accepted a similar job to what he held at Mooseheart in a private residential child care facility in Nebraska.

The Ahrens family, which includes wife Michaela, a dean at Mooseheart, and three boys, will move to his hometown of Wahoo, Nebraska. Each of their children will attend the high school he attended, Mellema said, Bishop Neumann. Michaela Ahrens and the children will move after the school year.

Ron Ahrens became Red Ramblers' head coach in 2008. He finished with a record of 124-77, which included the 2013-14 season in which Mooseheart went 29-3 and beat Heyworth 63-49 in the 1A title game behind 27 points from Mangisto Deng, 11 by Hameed Odunewu and a double-double of 15 points and 12 rebounds by 6-foot-9 Makur Puou.

Puou and Deng currently play for Vincennes University, ranked No. 1 in the National Junior College Athletic Association before it ended its season at 33-2 in the NJCAA Division 1 playoffs. Akim Nyang, the 7-foot-1 center from Mooseheart's championship team, will head to Northern Michigan for the 2015-16 season.

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

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