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BENNETT'S MINUTES: Volleyball shines at tourney time
Cloverdale Sectional deep, balanced; Tri-West overcomes turmoil to win at Greencastle
Volleyball has proven to be a strong sport around west central Indiana, and last week’s sectionals at Cloverdale and Greencastle lived up to that description.
Cascade was the only team among the seven in the Cloverdale 2A field with a losing record at 11-15, but the Cadets had just beaten South Putnam in the week leading up to the tourney and battled the Eagles tough before falling 3-2.
Southmont was impressive on Tuesday night in defeating Cloverdale to earn a trip to Saturday’s semifinals.
Following South’s exciting win over Cascade, North Putnam found itself up against one of the best hitters around in Parke Heritage’s Atlantis Clendinin — one of few players athletic enough to spike from the back row with good accuracy.
Southmont was also impressive on Saturday morning in defeating Riverton Parke 3-0, and the North Putnam-South Putnam battle in the second semifinal was an epic struggle before the Cougars managed to pull off a 3-2 victory.
I have never been in favor of teams playing more than one game a day in tournament competition, regardless of the sport, and this tourney unfortunately made my skepticism appear more valid.
Southmont was done playing at about 12:30, with by far the easiest match of the day, and even though the Mounties drove back to their school to rest they still were better prepared for the 7 p.m. final match than whichever team won the North-South battle that ended at about 2:15 p.m.
I didn’t hear anyone complain or bring this point up following the final match, but to me it’s just not fair for one team to have considerably more rest than the other. It’s a common practice, though, but one I think should be avoided.
Next time anyone asks me, I’ll make sure to let them know.
Southmont was a deserving champion, but more than one person I talked with thought the tourney could have played out entirely differently if it were recreated this week. The field was that strong.
Southmont girls’ teams completed a strong fall season with sectional titles in soccer and golf in addition to volleyball.
At Greencastle, a cloud hung over the Tri-West team entering the five-team tournament.
Greencastle had numerous chances to beat Danville in the only match on Thursday, but was unable to get it done. The only benefit of that match was that it ended pretty early and I was able to go to Cloverdale to take in the final match there.
Danville’s semifinal opponent was Tri-West, a strong team which had endured some recent issues that involved its coach being fired the week before the sectional.
The Boone County Sheriff’s Department opened an investigation of then-coach Louie Aguilar on Oct. 11 regarding an alleged communication via Snapchat with a player from another school. Aguilar was fired the next day.
Assistant coach Megan Spoonemore was listed in the tournament program as being the team’s coach for the sectional, and the Bruins overcame the commotion to defeat Monrovia (which was 20-6) by a 3-1 margin.
Danville defeated Lebanon in the other semifinal, and Tri-West beat Danville 3-1 in the finals to claim the sectional title. Former Greencastle Middle School student Elle Patterson is a key player for the Bruins, and her mother (Suzanne Masten) is listed as a volunteer coach for the team.
Odds and ends
• If problems at Tri-West sound familiar, they should. The school’s football coach (Tyler Bruce) has been suspended all season due to an alleged in appropriate relationship with a female student at the school.
Ironically, the Bruins have also thrived on the football field — having won five straight games after starting the regular season 2-2 and holding the best record in Sectional 29 entering tourney play this week.
The superintendent of the North West Hendricks School Corporation resigned earlier this month, an action believed to be related to the football coach situation.
In an oddity, the president of the NWHSC board of trustees is Jim Diagostino — a former Tri-West principal who is also concurrently the superintendent of the Mill Creek School District elsewhere in Hendricks County.
(Not sure that fact matters at all in either of these cases, but having such dual roles is odd at the very least and seemingly undesirable to most people or either organization.)
Would anyone be surprised if Diagostino wound up as the NWHSC superintendent? Probably not.
• A full College Report on the fall sports season will be in next Wednesday’s Banner Graphic.
In researching schools over the weekend, an oddity jumped off the page at Lake Land College in Illinois.
Aubrey Barker played basketball at Greencastle her freshman year, at South Putnam in her sophomore year and at Plainfield in her junior. She did not play basketball at Plainfield, but qualified for the track and field state finals for the second time (after having also done so at South Putnam).
Barker is listed as a freshman player on the basketball roster for the Lakers. It will be interesting to see how she progresses and how she bounces back after taking a year off from the sport. Being the great athlete she is, I wouldn’t bet against her.
• In other college offer news, Cloverdale’s Sammie Shrum picked up a recent offer from St. Mary-of-the-Woods College.
Clover grad Jalen Moore, now a sophomore at Olney Central, picked up his third Division I offer this week.
Moore held previous offers from Albany and Bethune-Cookman, and added an offer from Chicago State this week.
Moore’s Blue Knights have an almost entirely new squad this year — including 7-foot-1, 280-pound center Jason Cudd (who played last year at South Carolina).
• Greencastle got some good news this week in terms of its high school football program, as the ejection of head coach Mike Meyer last Friday night was rescinded by the officiating crew after a discussion on Saturday.
Meyer was ejected from the game as a result of two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties being assessed to members of his coaching staff, which is standard policy.
Greencastle athletic director Doug Greenlee received confirmation of the status change on Tuesday afternoon, and noted that the IHSAA depends on the judgment of the head official.
The IHSAA gets a lot of criticism, some deserved and some seemingly not, but seems to have done the right thing here.
• Officials throwing flags must have been popular on Friday.
In the second quarter of Friday night’s Western Indiana Conference football championship game between Northview and Indian Creek, standout Northview defensive lineman Ilias Gordon picked up two straight unsportsmanlike penalties and was ejected.
Gordon is among the state leaders in sacks, and Northview coach Mark Raetz was not happy about the situation.
“We lost our composure, and it was unfortunate to lose our best player like that,” Raetz told the Brazil Times. “That played a big part in the outcome.”
Indian Creek won 32-28.