BENNETT'S MINUTES: Tiger Cub girls break into top 20

Doubles squad, all golf teams also still alive

The honors just keep coming for the Greencastle girls’ track team.

As sophomore distance standout Emma Wilson prepares to compete on Saturday in the 1,600 and 3,200, the Tiger Cubs were honored this week with the No. 17 state ranking in the Indiana Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches poll.

Greencastle placed second in the Terre Haute North sectional earlier this month, and was eighth at last week’s Bloomington North regional.

The Tiger Cubs also won the Western Indiana Conference meet.

Wilson scored 20 points for the Tiger Cubs in the regional with her pair of record-setting performances, while Greencastle also got a point from sophomore Jada Amis in the shot put and one-third of a point from Sydney Lewis (another sophomore) in the pole vault.

Several other key team members are underclassmen, providing a strong foundation for success in the years to come.

While the spring sports season is slowing down, there are several athletes still competing.

South Putnam’s Kieffer Vittetow will run the 1,600 on Friday in the state finals, while Aubrey Barker will compete on Saturday in the long jump.

Greencastle’s No. 1 doubles team of senior Lydia Trout and Nicole Newgent won the individual sectional title last week, and will play on Saturday in the Kokomo Regional.

Trout-Newgent will play Maddy Heiney and Payton Krahn of Homestead in one semifinal, while a team from Yorktown will battle one from Lafayette Jeff in the other regional semifinal.

Boys’ golf sectionals begin later this week, with Greencastle, North Putnam and South Putnam competing at Attica on Friday and Cloverdale playing in the Martinsville Sectional on Monday.

Cloverdale’s Cooper Neese also begins his final stretch of high school basketball on Friday in the Hickory Husker Reunion Classic at Knightstown.

His Indiana All-Stars’ schedule can be found in the “On Tap” section elsewhere on this page.

Tourney tidbits

• The sectional baseball and softball sectional tourneys proved to be tough ones for Putnam County squads, as only Greencastle softball (a 25-1 winner over Indianapolis Washington) was able to record a victory.

The Tiger Cubs were eliminated 3-1 in eight innings by Danville, which eventually won the Indian Creek sectional title by defeating Beech Grove 6-0 in the championship game.

Cloverdale’s softball team had the best record among the Putnam County squads, but fell 3-1 to Southmont in the Cascade Sectional.

South Vermillion eventually won that tourney title with a 12-3 win over the Mounties.

• Other area softball teams winning sectional titles were Riverton Parke (its own tourney), Shakamak (at Clay City), Linton-Stockton (at South Knox) and Edgewood (at Sullivan). Those teams all had regional games on Tuesday night.

• Southmont narrowly escaped with a 5-4 win over North Putnam on Monday in the South Vermillion baseball sectional, and went on to defeat Rockville 2-1 to win the sectional crown.

The Cougars played well, but left too many people on base to be able to pull out the victory.

Area baseball teams winning sectional titles were Northview (its own tourney), Linton-Stockton (at Mitchell), Indian Creek (at Danville) and Tri-West (at Crawfordsville).

The always-tough Crawfordsville Sectional proved difficult again, as the No. 1-ranked hosts lost 2-0 to Western Boone in the first round.

To further make it a nightmarish week, huge storms on Sunday tore down most of the fence at the Crawfordsville field and the sectional (as well as a schedule regional tourney this Saturday) had to be moved to North Montgomery.

• None of our local teams play White River Valley in baseball, but what the Wolverines accomplished is worth mentioning.

WRV finished the regular season winless, and could have easily thrown in the towel and tanked its first-round sectional game just to get the season over.

Instead, the Wolverines put together an impressive run after drawing a first-round bye in its own sectional and defeated Clay City 9-4 and North Central 5-4 to win its first-ever baseball sectional title.

Stories like that are what make sports great.