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BENNETT's MINUTES: All-Putnam girls’ final sign of bright future
CLAYTON – Regardless of how much farther South Putnam’s girls advance in the state basketball tournament, their recent sectional crown provides optimism for the county in girls’ basketball for both the short-term and long run.
The Eagles will return all but one player – improving senior post player Jess Vensko – and have solid contributors in every grade with good futures ahead of them.
And it’s not just them with a bright future.
Cloverdale, the sectional runnerup, also loses just one senior starter – forward Kelsey Helterbrand – but returns the rest of its top seven tournament rotation that set a school record for wins with 16. Four freshmen are included among the other six in that group, and the Clovers have several other ninth-graders in a deep class for them. Despite so many freshmen on the varsity, the Clover JV squad won 15 games this year.
Greencastle has had eight straight winning seasons under Bradley Key, winning at least 12 games each time, and returns a large number of players from its Western Indiana Conference runnerup team. The Tiger Cubs lose seniors Nailah Ray and Gracie Smith, but return juniors Rose White, Layna Robinson and Marin Nally plus sophomores Jalyn Duff, Claire Gillen, Seelye Stoffregen and Bailey Shuee. Sophomore Jada Amis and freshman Allison Stevens look to move up from the junior varsity.
North Putnam will lose the most seniors of any county team, but coach Jarrod Duff gradually eased a deep group of freshmen and sophomores into the rotation and is encouraged about the future of his program. Many of those youngsters combined to win a junior varsity tournament at Tri-West against much larger schools.
South Putnam coach Brian Gardner knows that the success of this year’s team will not only pay dividends with current players in his program, but for many years into the future.
“For our program, that’s what we want,” he said. “We want to win conferences, counties and sectionals. You have to win one first to get to that point.
“It’s great for our girls to see it and understand it,” Gardner added. “It’s great for those younger girls to know it’s possible. Our junior varsity girls deserve a lot of credit for putting us through great preparation for the sectional, so they are a part of this too.”
Gardner and the Eagles will battle Eastern Hancock on Saturday in the Speedway Regional in a matchup of teams who knocked off top-10 opponents to get unlikely sectional victories. South Putnam beat No. 7-ranked Cascade in the semifinals of the Cascade Sectional, while Eastern Hancock upset top-ranked Triton Central (which was without its best player) in the Knightstown Sectional.
Gardner knows that his team’s success is going to put a big target on his team’s back moving forward.
“It doesn’t make it easier because you win one,” he said.
Cloverdale coach Matthew Langdon is elated both with this year’s team and its successes and the future.
“These girls have worked hard, and have the Cloverdale girls’ basketball program going in the right direction,” he said. “That’s just huge. They’re probably ready to start practice again already. That’s what’s neat about this group.”
Langdon, who has coached girls’ golf and basketball non-stop since August, deserves a little rest break though. So does his team, of which all five starters as well as many of his reserves play at least two sports and many are preparing to do something different in the spring.
“Usually teams are ready to move on to something else, but I think that on day one of off-season workouts they will be looking forward to day one of tryouts,” he said. “I’ve never had a team at Cloverdale excited about a tryout and we had that this year.
“You can’t learn from a moment until you are in the moment,” Langdon added. “We were exactly where we wanted to be – in the championship game in a position to win. Now we can learn from that, and have that drive to be back here next year.”
South Putnam and Cloverdale split four games this season, and could have met for a fifth time if the WIC crossover matchups had been slightly different.
Gardner knows the confrontations between the two nearby rivals are just beginning.
“It’s going to be a war for the next few years,” he said after Saturday night’s emotional sectional final. “Matthew does a great job with them, and I know their locker room isn’t a great place to be right now. He’s got to be proud of his girls, and they did a great job and fought hard.”
Langdon agrees.
“It’s a great rivalry,” he said. “Girls’ basketball doesn’t have that a lot. We went toe-to-toe with them, and split the year. We just lost the one at the wrong time.”