Sports

CLOVERDALE — Playing for the second time in five days, Cloverdale and Northview met on Friday in the ninth-place Western Indiana Conference crossover game. The contest was the fifth over the past three years between the two teams, and — like the first four games — Cloverdale emerged the winner by a 55-53 margin...

SPENCER — On a crossover night in which the WIC East dominated, the Greencastle girls’ basketball team got the WIC West its only win of the night. The Tiger Cubs rode a big second half to a 55-46 win over Owen Valley Friday night to claim seventh place in the conference...

BOYS Putnam County Greencastle 60, S. Vermillion 41 Statewide scores Avon 63, Fishers 60 Barr-Reeve 66, Wood Memorial 27 Batesville 55, Franklin Co. 40 Bedford N. Lawrence 40, Seymour 26 Blackford 68, Frankton 43 Bloomfield 75, Eastern (Greene) 34 Bloomington North 73, Ev. North 55...

South Putnam will look to win its first-ever basketball title in the Western Indiana Conference tonight when the Eagles travel to Nashville to meet the East Division champions. The teams met at South Putnam in December, with the visiting Eagles using 19-9 scoring advantages in the first and fourth periods to record the non-conference win...

BAINBRIDGE — Two gritty boys’ basketball teams battled down to the wire on Thursday night at North Putnam, with the host Cougars not making as many plays as they wished but just enough to hang on for a 56-53 win. Cloverdale coach Patrick Rady got the kind of defensive effort he had been seeking from his team in slowing down the high-scoring Cougars...

South Putnam (15-4) at Brown County (13-5) The coaches: Brian Gardner is in his fifth year at South Putnam. Matt Roberts is in his sixth year at Brown County. Recently: South has won 10 of its last 11 games. BC has lost three straight games. Per-game averages: Offense — South 57.7, BC 57.7. Defense — South 45.0, BC 42.1...

Caydhan Stevens is a senior at Cloverdale and participates in football and wrestling. ——— Banner Graphic: How important are sports to you, and what have you learned from them? Caydhan Stevens: “Sports entertain me and keep me occupied from doing anything else. They keep me in good shape, and I look forward to it every day. I’ve been playing since first grade.”...

FARMERSBURG — South Putnam’s girls’ basketball team started its season 5-3 this year, but has upped its game since then and improved its mark to 15-4. The latest “W” in the win column came Monday night, when the Eagles used tenacious defense to hound the top two Thunderbird scorers in recording a 69-49 victory...

CLAYTON — South Putnam’s boys had one of their best first halves of the season on Tuesday night at Cascade, hitting 11 of 20 shots from the field and committing just three turnovers. The result was a 27-23 halftime lead. A total of 11 turnovers in the final two periods, many coming at the worst possible moments, unfortunately kept the Eagles from getting their second win of the year as they fell 52-50...

MARSHALL — The Cloverdale Clovers battled but couldn’t quite get enough offense late in the game and fell to the Parke Heritage Wolves in girls’ basketball action, 48-41, on Tuesday night. The typically-quiet mid-week game became intense and tournament- like in the fourth quarter as both teams’ intensity level went up. ...

One of my few regrets of the sports coverage provided to Banner Graphic readers is my inability to include everything interesting that comes up through my many travels. Just not enough room or time for everything. I would like to write columns like today’s more often, and will try to get caught up ASAP. All-state football awards and all-county volleyball have been included recently, and we still have several college signing stories to get in as well as College Report updates...

You may not have noticed during the hectic holiday season, but we have made a couple of slight adjustments recently to some staples of Banner Graphic sports coverage that we want to make sure you know about. I work hard and long hours to make coverage of Putnam County sports as even and equitable as possible...

CLOVERDALE — South Putnam and North Putnam captured Putnam County championships in boys’ middle school basketball on Wednesday night at Cloverdale. The Eagles bested the Cloverdale Clovers 32-16 to win the 7th grade title and North defeated South 39-28 in the 8th grade matchup...

The South Putnam Eagles swept a pair of games from the Greencastle Tiger Cubs on Monday night at Greencastle Middle School in the Putnam County boys’ middle school basketball tournament. The seventh grade Eagles advanced to the championship game with a 32-23 victory, while South’s eighth graders took care of the Tiger Cubs 36-19 in the second game...

The DePauw University men’s basketball team beat the Wabash Little Giants 58-53 on Wednesday night in front of a packed arena. The atmosphere of Neal Fieldhouse was electric with both DePauw and Wabash fans filling the stands as the two rival schools went head to head for the first time this season...

BLOOMINGTON (AP) — Joey Brunk scored 14 points, including a key layup with 1 minute left to play, and Jerome Hunter made two late free throws Thursday night to close out Indiana’s 67-63 victory over No. 11 Michigan State. The Hoosiers (15-4, 5-3 Big Ten) have won two straight and four of their last five. It was coach Archie Miller’s 50th win since taking the job three seasons ago...

DePauw will host Wabash on Wednesday night as the two North Coast Athletic Conference schools renew their bitter rivalry on the hardwood. Game time is 7 p.m., and admission is free. The Tigers enter the game 7-8 overall and 4-4 in the NCAC after Saturday’s 77-55 loss at Ohio Wesleyan...