SHARON — Back in 2002 at the end of Zach Sarver's senior year as a point guard for the Slippery Rock High boys basketball team, then Rockets' boys coach Chris Burtch made an observation.

He said Sarver was going to make a great head basketball coach one day.

“I don't know if I'm there yet,” Sarver said, laughing. “We've had a good season.”

That's an understatement from Sarver, who led the Sharon boys basketball team to its first District 10 championship since 1991 with a 71-66 victory over Hickory Saturday.

The Tigers have won 20 straight and their 23 wins is the most in three decades.

“It's a credit to our kids and the kids from the last several years,” said Sarver, who is in this third season as the head coach at Sharon. “They laid the foundation and the kids we have now have bought in. All the guys are engaged right now.”

Sarver put his time in as an assistant coach over the years before getting the gig at Sharon.

Not long after he graduated from Slippery Rock High, he served as an assistant under Burtch with the Rockets and Don Fee at Grove City.

He was a graduate assistant coach under Kevin Reynolds at Slippery Rock University and an assistant at Hickory and then moved briefly to Maryland, where he was an assistant on a team that went to that state's title game.

“I've been fortunate to learn from a lot of good coaches, take pieces from all of them and blend them into our team and what we have at Sharon,” Sarver said.

In Sarver's first season, the Tigers started 3-9 but won nine of 11 before falling in overtime in the District 10 playoffs to finish 12-12.

Last season, Sarver led Sharon to a 15-11 record and the Tigers' first appearance in the PIAA playoffs in six years.

That set the stage for this year's breakthrough campaign.

“We saw some pieces,” Sarver said of those early days as the Sharon coach. “We had a couple of good, solid building years. We've had good kids who also happened to be good basketball players. That's a great place to start. They bought into the fundamental things we want to do. The unselfish play.”

One of Sarver's first major changes came at the elementary level.

He expanded the teams to better accommodate the 90 players in the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade levels.

“We have eight teams at Sharon,” Sarver said. “They practice twice a week and play on the weekends. The best ones now, who are good students and are doing what they're supposed to do off the floor, are playing in all these tournaments. The foundation is being added down there as well.

“We were cutting our program out from underneath us because we were cutting it down to 12 in fifth and sixth grade,” Sarver added. “Kids are going to play different sports. We have a good group of guys down there who are doing a really good job.”

Sarver has also stressed high standards off the floor starting at that level.

“We're holding kids accountable academically accountable in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades so it's not a surprise to them,” Sarver said. “If they get in trouble in school, they aren't playing, even in elementary games.”

Everything Sarver has touched so far has turned to gold.

But he's not giving himself a chance to relax.

“I hope we get a fourth year,” Sarver said. “The first year, you're hoping for a second.”

Sharon will open the PIAA 4A playoffs against Valley at 8 p.m. Saturday at Slippery Rock University.

Sarver said he got one very important piece of advice when he began coaching.

“You need to have a good wife, or not one at all,” Sarver said. “I happen to have one and she's a great one because it takes a lot of time.”

Sarver and his wife, Kristin, have two young boys. Caden will turn 4 at the end of this month, and Keegan will turn 1 in May.

He said he's grateful for the support of his young family.

“I obviously love the game and that's very important with all the time you have to put into this game and this job,” Sarver said. “It's really not a job if you enjoy doing it.”