Bennett’s Minutes: Eagles only WIC football team to survive sectional

The Western Indiana Conference went 1-4 in football sectional championship games on Friday night.

South Putnam’s convincing 55-8 win over Traders Point Christian was the only league victory.

Other scores were Western Boone 49, North Putnam 8; Tri-West 31, Sullivan 27; East Central 57, Edgewood 22; and Bishop Chatard 42, Indian Creek 6.

The only close game of the bunch was the Tri-West and Sullivan game. The Arrows threw a pass into the end zone that was caught by a receiver who was ruled to come down out of bounds. The play has been a heavy subject of chatter on social media.

Rick Semmler of WTHI-TV caught the play perfectly on video, and from that angle it seemed to have been called correctly. Props to the nearby official who didn’t have the benefit of instant replay. You can find it on Semmler’s Twitter page if you want to decide for yourself.

Evansville Central completed an impressive run through undoubtedly the state’s toughest sectional, defeating previously-undefeated Boonville 49-20 to give former South Putnam coach Troy Burgess a sectional title.

The Bears beat Northview, which also came into the game ranked and undefeated, and beat another ranked team in Evansville Reitz to open the tourney.

Central will play at East Central on Saturday afternoon.

A column last week about coaches with local connections omitted a pair of really obvious ones. Indianapolis Lutheran coach Dave Pasch, formerly at North Putnam, won a Class A sectional title and will bring his team to South Putnam on Friday.

North Vermillion’s Brian Crabtree, who coached North Putnam for one year when Greg Barrett went to coach at Indiana State, also won a class A sectional. His Falcons will play the North Central Thunderbirds (the school where he first served as head coach) in the regional. North Central won its first-ever sectional football title.

Barrett’s second South Vermillion team didn’t fare as well as his first, going 3-7 and losing to Tri-West by a very respectable 28-17 score in the first round of the sectional.

In volleyball, Barr-Reeve won in Class A over Pioneer, while North Judson won over Christian Academy (the only private school in the finals) in 2A, New Castle defeated Northview in 3A and Yorktown beat Avon in 4A.

The Knights picked up their second state runnerup finish in the past five years, also taking second in 2014.

Yorktown finished its season 34-0, and unbelievably only lost one set all season.

New Castle finished 35-5 in defending its state title. Also unbelievable is that the Trojans were not even their conference champions this year, competing in the rugged Hoosier Heritage Conference — along with Yorktown.

Another interesting tourney note is that all four champions were coached by women for the first time in the 22-year history of the multi-class state finals.