Early WIC standings tilted, but it's early

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

After two weeks of play, the West Division of the Western Indiana Conference has clearly outperformed the East Division.

Despite the addition of traditional small-school football power Indian Creek, the East Division has limped to a 1-11 record through the first two weeks. Its only victory came by Brown County in Week 1, a 21-20 triumph over Edinburgh in which BC trailed the perennial Class A lightweights 20-0 at halftime.

The West Division, meanwhile, has compiled an impressive 10-2 mark.

Greencastle, North Putnam and South Putnam each contribute a 2-0 record to that tally -- with North Putnam and South Putnam each winning both games on the road.

West Vigo is also 2-0 with a pair of comeback wins, while Northview lost 15-0 to Danville in Week 1 with several key starters sidelined due to non-injury issues and Sullivan falling to Class A powerhouse Linton.

So does that mean the West Division is considerably better, and the "crossover" playoff games will all be blowouts? Don't count on it.

The opponents of the six East Division teams are collectively 21-3 in the first two weeks, while the West Division teams' opponents have limped to a combined 6-18 record.

What these non-conference games could be telling us may have more to do with the sequential order of scheduling rather than talent or ability level. Only time will tell.

Every game this Friday involving WIC teams is a conference game, with Brown County playing at Cascade, Edgewood at Cloverdale, Greencastle at West Vigo, Indian Creek at Owen Valley, North Putnam at South Putnam and Sullivan at Northview.

Other tidbits gathering dust in the inbox:

* I hope you were able to read my story last week on Greencastle's Whitney Weinschenk and her campaign to promote skin cancer awareness.

A brief update on her quest to raise additional funds for the sun shelter project is that, following our interview earlier last week, she was awarded the Putnam County Youth Philanthropy Grant for which she had applied. Money well invested.

* Even though I don't have a lot of historical involvement with people from Putnam County, it's always good to run across blasts from the past.

I saw my senior prom date's brother and a former Northview teaching colleague at a recent volleyball match, and ran into Kyle Shaffer's dad at the Cloverdale-South Putnam football game a couple of weeks ago.

Larry Shaffer was a year ahead of me in school at Terre Haute North, and was a standout lineman in football as well as an excellent wrestler.

Perhaps his best athletic triumphs came after high school, though, as he developed into one of the state's top hurlers in the men's fastpitch ranks.

* There has been a minor change in Cloverdale's boys' basketball schedule. The Clovers will still open the season on Nov. 22 in Illinois at the Tournament of Champions, but will now be playing Illini Bluffs instead of Champaign Central.

* Some former DePauw athletes are also in the news.

Jim Callane, longtime high school administrator and coach, was recently inducted into the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame.

Callane spent 15 seasons as a varsity basketball coach at Danville, Linton and Kokomo Haworth and 18 years as the Kokomo High School athletic director in the years following the merger of Kokomo and Haworth. Callane was responsible for major up-grades to KHS facilities, including the addition of a soccer complex.

He was a standout player at Rushville High School and DePauw University, earning induction into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and the DePauw Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.

Greencastle native and former DePauw standout athlete Dan Whaley passed away earlier this month.

As a DePauw Tiger, he played varsity football and baseball and still holds the all-time school record for most pass interceptions. He will be inducted into the DePauw University Athletics Hall of Fame for football and baseball during Old Gold Day weekend on Oct. 29.

Finally, former Tiger quarterback Michael Engle of Terre Haute South is in his first year as the offensive coordinator at Division II West Virginia Wesleyan after several years as receivers coach for Bryant College at the FCS level.

Engle earned the starting quarterback job as a senior in 2010 and led the Tigers to a Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship and the NCAA tournament.

He completed 282 passes for 3,180 yards and 30 touchdowns in his final season. Engle averaged 289 yards per game, completing 65 percent of his passes on the year.

* Owen Valley has hired alumnus Trace Temples as its girls' varsity basketball coach.

Temples teaches at Eminence and will inherit a wealth of young talent with the Patriots.

* Five members of the 2015-16 Greencastle girls' swimming team were honored as Academic All-Americans by the National Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association. The "Sharks" with superb academic performance, in addition to their record-setting times in the pool, are Megan Haltom, Mallary Meyer, Jessica Roberts, Corrie Romer and Amelia Smith.

"Our swimming and diving team values performance in the classroom as a primary responsibility of our participants, and those values have paid off for these fine student-athletes," Greencastle coach Kent Menzel said.

* Putnam County residents (and twin brothers) Levi and Logan Taylor participated in the National Top Gun Football Showcase event in South Carolina in July.

They were selected as the top 20 percent of the incoming eighth-grade All-American football players.

Levi Taylor was recently selected to play in the Diamond All-American Bowl game in December as one of the nation's top 40 incoming eighth-grade quarterbacks in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Logan Taylor plays on the defensive line.

The brothers go to North Clay Middle School.

* Northview senior softball standout Stacy Payton has changed her verbal commitment from Purdue to Ball State.

The hard-hitting catcher had committed to coach Kim Schuette awnd the Boilers, but Schuette resigned in July.

Payton re-opened her recruiting options at that point. Ball State coach Megan (Ciolli) Bartlett of Terre Haute North was an assistant at Purdue during Payton's recruitment and received her new commitment.

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