Fenwick boys basketball coach Dave Fergerson is as happy as anybody in Oak Park about the school’s football team heading to state this weekend. But the Friars’ playoff run made the start of Fergerson’s 2025-26 season more complicated.
For example, he’s had to spend the first week of practice without the eight players who are still playing football. That list includes mainstays like 6-foot senior shooting guard Tommy Thies, 5-11 junior point guard Jake Thies, and 6-1 junior shooting guard Jimmy Watts.
“Super-happy for the football team,” said Fergerson, now in his third season. “Anytime someone has a chance to go to state, not many are fortunate enough to do that. For myself, it proposes a challenge to see where other guys have a chance to step up.”
The silver lining is that he’s had a chance to see up close a talented group of sophomores and juniors who are going to get key minutes before and after the football players return.
Start that list with 6-0 junior shooting guard Travis Cole Jr., who transferred from Oak Park and River Forest.
“He is one of the most athletic guys in the whole state,” Fergerson said. “He’s extremely fast with or without the ball.”
Then you have 6-0 junior small forward Luke Vongluekiat, along with two 5-9 sophomore point guards in Kayonta Williams and Dae’lon Wofford.
Now add in varsity returnees like senior centers Garrett McNally (6-5) and Mikey McMahon (6-7), and 6-3 senior shooting guard Conrad Sperry, and you get the sense that things will be just fine.
In fact, maybe the football players’ extra week will pay big dividends. It all depends on how you look at it, and Fergerson is a glass-half-full kind of guy.
“All the teams we’re playing, they are playing with their full roster,’ he said. “Those football players are only going to add. If we can win some of these games without those football guys, that will only improve our roster. [They] bring another level of toughness and speed.”
That’s what Sperry thinks, but he insists there is even more to it. For one, his football teammates will undoubtedly bring a championship mentality to the program.
“Our teams places emphasis on defense and that is going to help us out there,” he said.
The intangible for Fergerson, whose team went 21-12 a year ago and 5-4 in the Chicago Catholic League Blue, is playing hard, especially on defense. That will be key at the outset of competition, where the Friars will play Hinsdale South and Riverside-Brookfield at the latter’s Bill VandeMerkt Thanksgiving Classic this weekend.
It doesn’t get any easier. After a home game against Nazareth, Dec. 2, Fenwick plays Cole Jr.’s former team, OPRF, on Dec. 5 in the Chicago Elite Classic at UIC’s Credit Union One Arena.
They will also play in York’s fabled Jack Tosh tournament over the Christmas holidays, and St. Patrick, Jan. 19, at Fenwick’s Martin Luther King Shootout. The Shamrocks beat the Friars in a Class 3A sectional final a year ago.
“We’ve moved on from that game and want a new mentality for this season,” Sperry said.
The CCL Blue schedule once again is daunting, where the Friars will face Class 3A state champion DePaul Prep, 3A runner-up Brother Rice and Mount Carmel. And that’s just for starters. Add in Loyola and St. Ignatius, and every night will be a fight.
“They are Super Bowl games,” Fergerson said.
Sperry thinks the schedule is “definitely manageable.
“I think we’re going to be a hard team to play,” he said. “We play whoever we play, and we play them hard, no matter what.”
