BOYS COACH OF THE YEAR

PILOT GROVE — To know what Pilot Grove boys basketball coach Rick Grunden asks from his players, all someone needs to do is look at the board.

Before every game, Grunden writes in bold letters: DON’T GET OUTWORKED.

That statement was the first thing senior Tyler Ellebracht echoed when asked what Grunden preached the most during the senior’s career.

The fourth-year coach personified that approach — something his players noticed.

“He put in just as much as we did,” said senior Nick Haller, “probably more.”

“He was the one when we’d practice every day, he’d get us prepared for all these games,” said senior Jordan Williams. “He knows everything about basketball.”

The Tigers weren’t outworked this season. Pilot Grove posted a 25-4 record and went to the Class 1 quarterfinals for the first time in school history, according to the MSHSAA Records Book & Yearbook.

Grunden’s hard work paid off for the Tigers, making him The Democrat’s 2008 Coach of the Year.

Grunden and the Tigers have steadily improved over the past four years. The team went 9-17 his first season, 19-9 his second year, 21-7 last season and 25-4 this year.

“It’s been a building process,” Grunden said.

Pilot Grove’s only loss against a Class 1 school this season was to Fair Play in the quarterfinals. The Tigers never stubbed their toes against a lesser opponent.

“We talk about that all the time,” Grunden said. “We talk about, ‘Let’s get out, take care of business and leave no doubt.’ There were some opportunities that we probably could have started to look past some people.”

Pilot Grove went on 11-game winning streaks twice this season, including the last stretch that started following the Slater tournament, where the Tigers went 1-2.

“(We) probably (changed) our mental attitude toward the game,” Williams said. “We realized that we have to go out there and work hard every single game. You can’t take anything for granted.”

The Tigers didn’t necessarily consider the Slater tournament a turning point.

“We learned a lot in that week,” Grunden said. “That was a big point there, going up there in late January. Yeah we got two losses, but I think that made us a better team.”

Grunden and the Tigers dealt with some late-season adversity when starting senior Roger Martin was suspended for the sectional and quarterfinal games.

“I told the kids this when it happened,” the coach said, “sometimes you’re going to get dealt crappy cards and you’ve got to play them. You’re going to have adversity, and you’ve got ... to deal with it.”

Grunden said it was an easy decision to suspend Martin for the rest of the season because his players knew they would be held accountable for their actions.

“We’d been playing with him so long, we’d like him to be there,” Haller said. “But you’ve got to overcome that. You can’t let it stop you from where you want to go.”

Freshman Jacob Schuster filled in as a starter, making his first start since early February when the Tigers faced Leeton in sectional play.

“He helped Jordan (Williams) out,” Grunden said. “Jacob’s a little gym rat and all the sudden in late November and December, he’s turning Jordan into a gym rat. They’re having 3-point shooting contests after practice. They would be in the gym for an hour, two hours after practice.”

The Tigers weren’t even fazed by a double-digit deficit in the second half of the sectional game against Leeton.

Even with the freshman in the starting rotation, the well-coached Tigers stuck with the game plan and pulled out an overtime win — sending Pilot Grove to its first quarterfinal game in school history.