Menu
BENNETT'S MINUTES: WIC preparing to crown spring sports champs
A few baseball and softball games remain to be played in the Western Indiana Conference to determine the matchups for the crossover playoff round.
The softball crossover games will be Friday, with the baseball matchups set for May 16.
In softball, Brown County currently leads the East Division with a 4-1 record. The only remaining game has huge implications, as second-place Indian Creek plays Owen Valley. If Indian Creek wins, the Braves will claim the top seed in the championship game based upon their 5-2 win over Brown County.
The Eagles are coached by a former student of mine, North Central grad Kevin Greve.
Cloverdale and Edgewood tied for third, with Edgewood winning their head-to-head matchup 9-4. Cascade finished fifth at 1-4 and Owen Valley currently stands sixth at 0-4 pending the Indian Creek outcome.
In the West Division, each team has one game left to play. Sullivan is 4-0 with a game yet to play against second-place West Vigo (3-1). Northview is tied for second at 3-1 with the Vikings. North Putnam and South Putnam are tied for fourth at 1-3, while Greencastle is sixth at 0-4.
Basically, if Indian Creek and Sullivan win their final conference games they will meet in the championship.
In baseball, the only spot officially decided is that Brown County is last in the East Division at 0-5.
Cloverdale is one of three teams which has two games to play, one of those vacancies being the result of a bizarre situation at Owen Valley on Wednesday. The home plate umpire suffered concussion-like symptoms after being hit by a foul ball and was replaced by the base umpire. The same thing happened to him, and the game had to be stopped due to a lack of officials. Bizarre.
Indian Creek is in first at 3-0, while Edgewood is second at 4-1 and Cascade is third at 3-2. Cloverdale and Owen Valley are tied for fourth at 1-2.
In the powerful West Division, the three ranked teams with Division I-bound pitchers are not surprisingly at the top of the pack. Sullivan is 4-0, and needs just a win over West Vigo to claim the top seed in the West Division. Northview and West Vigo are each 3-1, while South Putnam stands 2-2 and Greencastle and North Putnam are both 0-4 entering a Tuesday encounter.
Basically, if Sullivan beats West Vigo and Indian Creek gets wins over Cloverdale and Owen Valley then those two teams would meet in the finals.
Tennis crossover matches were scheduled for Friday, but were rained out and will be made up next week.
The WIC track meets will be Tuesday (girls at Edgewood) and Thursday (boys at Northview), while the conference golf tourney will be next Saturday at Idle Creek in Terre Haute.
* Lots of changes were made recently when the IHSAA realigned the classes for basketball, soccer, football and volleyball based upon the updated enrollment figures.
One of the highlights for county schools was that Greencastle came out ahead in the Class 3A boys’ basketball sectional that it will again host, with powerful Tri-West and Danville being shifted elsewhere and being replaced by Southmont and Benton Central. Winning the sectional still won’t be an easy task, but the field seems more balanced from top to bottom.
The Class 2A South Putnam boys’ sectional saw Covenant Christian take the place of Southmont, which moved up to 3A. Probably not a huge difference there.
The Class 2A girls’ basketball sectional involving three Putnam County schools only had one member change from last year, but it was a big one. With Southmont moving up, the IHSAA assigned powerful Western Boone (which is 3A in boys’ basketball) as its replacement.
The Stars, who have one of the state’s top juniors-to-be in Madison Jones, eliminated Greencastle from the sectional this season.
A record number of teams (378) are entered in this year’s softball sectionals, with the Cascade 2A sectional kicking off on May 22.
Cloverdale has a 12-3 record that tops the field so far, but the Clovers needed two runs in the top of the seventh to beat the defending champion Cadets (who are 8-7) last month.
South Vermillion is 9-2 Southmont is 10-4, Monrovia is 9-5, South Putnam is 5-10 and North Putnam is 4-10 in what should be a competitive sectional.
Greencastle will be playing in the 3A Indian Creek sectional and plays Indianapolis Washington in the first round. Not much information is available on Washington, but the Continentals have lost several games this year and the Tiger Cubs should have a shot in their opener.
Danville is 14-5 and appears to be the pre-tourney favorite, while Indian Creek is 8-5 and Beech Grove is 3-8. Nor much information is available on Indianapolis Northwest, but the Space Pioneers have lost several games this year.
* The Western Indiana Conference will have a one-third turnover in football coaches for this fall after the resignation of Sullivan’s Trent Olson this week.
The coach of the 2016 West Division champions coached 10 years at his alma mater with a 58-46 record.
Indian Creek and North Putnam earlier filled their vacant positions, while Edgewood has not yet named a new coach.
* Two Putnam County basketball players recently had good performances in spring travel tournament competition.
South Putnam sophomore-to-be Alex Bratcher, competing for the Indiana’s Best 15-and-under team, was one of two players from her team’s pool to be named to the all-star team at the United States Junior Nationals “Hoops in the Heartland” tournament at Westfield.
Greencastle senior-to-be Colin York shot 50 percent from 3-point range to lead the Grand Park Premier team to the Platinum bracket championship in the Elevate Hoops Super 24 tournament recently at Westfield.
The Premier team defeated the Alabama Basketball Academy, Grinders Chicago, Cooper International Academy of California, The Truth (Kentucky) and All Out of Indianapolis.
York had five assists against Cooper Academy and six points and four assists in the win over The Truth. He had 11 points in the championship game, including a 3-pointer with 15 seconds left that helped secure the win.
Other members of the Grand Park Premier team are Alec Burton of Danville, Logan Blake and Tyler Watson of Tri-West, Cam Chadd of Southmont, Isaac Combs of Bloomfield and Nate McLain of Center Grove.
* Cooper Neese has recovered well enough from recent minor knee surgery to take the field for the Cloverdale baseball team.
Neese had dabbled in golf earlier in this high school career, but spring travel basketball tournaments kept him off the baseball field until this spring.
He struggled on the mound in a game witnessed last month at Cascade, and seemed more comfortable at second base and at the plate. Neese did well for someone who hasn’t played for so long, and had he stuck with baseball he has the tools to have been a successful player.
He’s not complaining about his athletic career path, though.
Chris Holtmann, his future college coach at Butler, recently was given a contract extension through 2025 that seems to solidify him being there through Neese’s career.
The Bulldogs also signed a highly-rated point guard to complete their 2017 recruiting class and fill a void on their roster. Aaron Thompson of Fairfax, Va., is the 169th rated player in the 2017 class by 247sports.com and had originally signed with Pittsburgh before asking to be released from that commitment.
Butler will have six freshmen next year – including Southport’s Joey Brunk, who was granted a hardship waiver for last season. The Bulldogs will have plenty of chances to get acquainted with each other later this summer when the team takes an exhibition trip to Spain from Aug. 2-12.
Neese was recently named as second team all-state by USA Today Sports. The first team consisted of New Albany’s Romeo Langford, Mr. Basketball Kris Wilkes of Indianapolis North Central, Aaron Henry of 4A state champion Ben Davis, Malik Williams of Fort Wayne Snider and Brian Bowen of the LaLumiere Prep School in LaPorte.
Others on the second team were Keion Brooks and Jaylen Butz of Fort Wayne North and Jack Nunge and Alex Hemenway of Castle.
Tickets are on sale for the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star game at Indianapolis on June 10 and can be purchased at https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/05005285E85AD9CB?brand=fieldhouse&camefrom=E.... If the presale is still ongoing, the coupon code is “stars”.
The link is also included with this column on line at bannergraphic.com.
* Got a bit of bad information on a recent story about Cloverdale’s Kelsey Helterbrand signing with DePauw. Cloverdale won its only softball sectional title in 2009, Apologies to Clovers from that era.
* In case you missed it, Turkey Run High School will cease to exist after the 2017-18 school year. The school has suffered drops in enrollment for several years, and will consolidate with Rockville. All high school students from both districts will attend school in Rockville, and all of the middle school students will attend class at Turkey Run.
The Warriors have been better than expected athletically, winning sectional titles in 2016 in baseball and boys’ tennis.
* A few more college commitments have been made by Putnam County athletes. Jack Kendall of North Putnam will join his good friend Kyler Jeter on the baseball team at Trine, while South Putnam state finalist Kyle Shaffer will wrestle at Wabash and Greencastle’s Jackie Scanland will play football at Franklin.
More on those athletes when signings take place.