Huron High School senior A.J. Mathew shares his experiences in AnnArbor.com's "High School Hoops Journal." Mathew is a 4.0 student and four-year starting point guard for the River Rats, who reached the Class A state finals last season.

Mathew's fourth entry comes after the first season sweep of rival Pioneer in his career. The win also secured Huron's Southeastern Conference Red championship. And, oh yeah, the 17-1 River Rats have won 15 straight with just two regular season games left.

March is HERE! This is the time we have been waiting for. There is no more talking about what March can be, because it is finally here. Actions will prevail this month.

Huron's AJ Mathew enter's the court against Pioneer through the player's tunnel.

AnnArbor.com file photo

Last week, we won our cross-town rivalry game and improved our record to 17-1! No matter what the records are, who is on which team, or what happens during the season, Huron vs. Pioneer will always be a big game. The rivalry is historic and each team lives for those bragging rights.

Our team met at Pioneer to support our girls team as they took on Pioneer for the SEC title in the night's first game. The game tipped off, and the gym began to heat up. The temperature inside the gym was blazing. As we watched the girls play, we could feel the sweat forming on our bodies -- partly because of the heat created in the packed gym and partly in anticipation of our game. The spectators rolled in as the girls game continued and the excitement began to sky rocket. The Huron girls were victorious and that set the stage for our game! Congratulations to Huron girls' varsity basketball team and their coaches! We're proud of you! The gym was packed with many folks from the community coming out and supporting their respective sides. As we were suiting up for game time, we could hear the rumbling of the fans through the walls of the locker room. It made the hair on my arms stand up. This was it. The girls won; we had to win. The atmosphere was loud; fans crammed into the bleachers. Pioneer had a huge student section that was relentless. Any time you were close to their section, they yelled things trying to knock you off your game.

It did not rattle us. Our fans were dispersed on two sides of the gym, however, and they did not let us down. We heard the "River" ... "Rats" and "Green-House" echoing from each side as we continued to play. This energized us even more. The rivalry of the fans adds to the excitement of the game.

Coach Samaha's intense pre-game speech fired us up. Coach told us that we cannot wait around and go basket-for-basket with any team; we have to come out strong and execute to perfection. There is a sense of unity that has been growing within our team game by game and it showed as we took the court. We knew the SEC title was on the line and we wanted it. We got off to a quick start and ended the first quarter at 16-2. The adrenaline was flowing in all of us. Our fans were hyped up! There were still things we were a little sloppy with (i.e. loose balls, trap rotations, etc.), so we worked harder on those things in the second quarter.

At halftime we were all fired up. The score was 28-9. We knew our work was not done yet and we had to continue to execute our defense. Coach always preaches to us that we cannot take our foot off the pedal until we reach our goal -- the state championship. We fixed a few of our mental errors in the second half and we executed better. One thing we take pride in as a program is improvement. Every time we step on the floor we have to improve some aspect of the game, and it seemed we did that on Friday night. For the first time in my career we swept the regular season series with Pioneer.

We have two big conference games left against Saline and Skyline. On Tuesday, we tip off against Saline for our seniors' final home game EVER at the River Dome. Man, time has flown by. In my four years on varsity, I was able to play two years with my brother, Philip, and that time I will always remember. And the team this year is as tight as any family can be. These friendships will be lifelong.

Now that March is finally here, it makes me reflect back a little. Throughout my four years at Huron, I have never been on a team like I am now. In the past few years, heading into March, we did not really know what to expect. We did not have the experience nor did we really know what it takes to win at the highest level. Every year we learned new lessons and we saw how March can be such an up-and-down month for any team.

This year, it is different. Every team has a shot to make it big, and our mindset is to capitalize on every opportunity. With the experience of our team and our coaching staff, I have no doubt that we will continue to play Huron basketball throughout this month. March is when nightmares occur and dreams come true. We will continue to prepare top notch on a daily basis and take the right steps to make our dreams come true.

Coach Samaha has embedded in our minds that we need to do everything perfectly. We understand that nobody is perfect and since no one will ever be perfect, we always have something to strive for. We know that we will never be a perfect team, but we can continue to give perfect effort. We will work our tails off to get as close to perfection as we can be by reducing mistakes, executing fundamentals and playing team basketball. Perfection is a mindset and the nature of our program. We will never be perfect, but aiming for perfection always gives us something to work toward.

Let March Madness begin! Go Rats!

Have a question you'd like answered in a future entry? Comment below or e-mail ajmathew03@comcast.net.