COACH OF THE YEAR: Hyllberg the missing link to Westosha hoops

James Hyllberg of Westosha Central High School boys basketball is the 2016 Coach of the Year (Earlene Frederick/The Report).

By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer

While Westosha Central High School’s boys basketball program had a core of talented athletes, the team was like a jigsaw puzzle waiting to get assembled, but James Hyllberg was ready when he arrived as the new coach last year.

Hyllberg, who is the 2016 Westosha Report Coach of the Year, helped steer the Falcons to their first Southern Lakes Conference title since 1998 and snapped a skid of several consecutive losing seasons.

According to 2016 graduate Jordan Easthon, a member of last year’s squad, Hyllberg’s competitive spirit gave the Falcons what they needed.

“I feel that Central has a lot of good athletes right now, but we’ve always had really good athletes,” said Easthon. “So I would say without Coach Hyllberg, we would be just another high school basketball team.”

“With the group that we had last year, he was the right guy for the job. He’s all about winning. That’s what the school needs and he is the perfect guy for the job.”

Before Hyllberg held court, the Falcons endured several struggling seasons, including Easthon’s junior season, when Westosha Central finished 11-14 overall under one-year coach Gordon Nikolic.

Hyllberg, who received help from his assistant coaches, along with Athletic Director Jonathan Lindh, said it was a challenge when he arrived from Mahone Middle School in Kenosha, where he coached for 13 years and guided them to top finishes annually.

“It was obviously better competition,” Hyllberg said. “But coming in here, new, it took a lot of time to know the players, their strengths, their weaknesses.”

As Hyllberg got to know the players, he leaned on assistants Marcus Zackery, Keith Skrzynecki and Mike McNulty for guidance.

Hyllberg, who serves an administrative role with the Kenosha Unified School District, added David Cutts to the coaching mix as one of his first orders of business.

“What I would like to say is that the assistants deserve as much credit as Coach Hyllberg. They helped him out too,” said Easthon.

Defense wins championships
Through Hyllberg’s assessment, he wanted to change the team mindset, including the primary objective of playing stronger defense.

“We had to get guys to play defense, first, and let them use their strengths,” Hyllberg said. “But I think the hardest part was getting them to play as a team.”

Easthon agreed, adding Hyllberg continually reiterated a team concept.

“We always had good talent, just we never really had a coach give us discipline,” said Easthon. “I think that what he instilled in us last year, we were a much different team defensively. We knew we could score, just had to stop the other team.”

Through Hyllberg’s direction, the Falcons forged ahead during the 2015-16 season, producing win streaks of four, six and three games, and had only one losing streak, losing in back-to-back games against non conference opponents.

The Falcons, who held a collective 25-46 record in the three seasons before Hyllberg, jumped to 16-8 overall last year and captured an outright Southern Lakes Conference title at 11-3.

Easthon, who endured most of the difficult seasons, believes the culture shifted from losing to winning when Hyllberg started.

“We were almost used to losing and him and his (assistants) would not let that happen,” said Easthon. “So we got the right group of coaches that believed in us.”

“He told us straight up, on the first couple of weeks last year what we needed to do in order to be great. He knew that we were going to be good.”

Entering this year, without Easthon, senior Ron Hall and nearly a dozen other seniors, Hyllberg and his assistant coaches continue to instill the belief in the Falcons’ squad.

Through Dec. 30, the Falcons are unbeaten in the SLC at 3-0, and stand 4-3 overall.


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