WIC wins few battles over Mother Nature

Today is Friday the 13th on the calendar, but everyone involved with Western Indiana Conference athletics should have already used up their allotment of bad luck this week.

Numerous weather-related issues -- both actual and predicted -- have caused some events to have been moved three times already this week.

The conference expanded to 12 schools for this year, necessitating the separation of the track meets into one-gender events and increasing the importance of getting divisional games completed before the target date of the crossover playoff round.

South Putnam athletic Director Troy Burgess is just in his second year of running the Eagle athletic program, and admits that this week has been the most difficult of his short tenure.

"No doubt, it's been nuts," Burgess said. "As a coach or an AD, it's just part of your job.

"I think it's toughest on the kids," he said. "They are trying to balance their schedules out with everything they have going on, and they spend time making a bus ride -- then have to turn around and go back home. I feel bad for them."

South Putnam was able to get in a home middle school track meet on Thursday, in spite of the cancellation of the girls' conference event.

"We had a couple periods of pretty good rain, but we got it in," he said. "We were good as long as there was no lightning. It might have been worse in Edgewood than it was here.

Weather continued to plague WIC championship competitions on Thursday, causing many events to be moved to today.

* Track and field -- The girls' WIC meet, originally scheduled for Tuesday, started on Wednesday evening at Edgewood. A few events were completed before a severe thunderstorm in the area caused the event to be halted.

The girls' meet was to have been finished on Thursday, with the boys' meet moving to today, but more bad weather did not allow the event to take place.

The new schedule is for the girls' meet to be finished starting at 5:30 p.m. today at Northview, with the entire boys' meet following afterward.

* Baseball and softball -- The original schedule called for all divisional games to be finished by Thursday, with the corresponding teams from each division meeting today in the crossover round.

Some of the crossover matchups are set for today and will go on as planned, with Northview playing at Cascade for the softball league championship, South Putnam playing at Brown County in the 11th-place softball game and South Putnam playing at Cascade in baseball for seventh place.

Three divisional baseball games and two softball games will be attempted again today, with their outcomes enabling the remainder of the crossover games to be finalized. Schools involved in the crossover games can establish their own dates for those contests, with several expected to take place early next week.

Softball

* Sectional pairings set -- Cloverdale drew the opening game, North Putnam and South Putnam are paired up in the first round and Greencastle got a first-round bye as the IHSAA sectional tournament draw took place on Monday.

The Clovers (4-5-1) will open play in the Class 2A South Vermillion sectional at 5 p.m. on May 23 against Cascade, the Western Indiana Conference East Division winner with a 5-0 record. Cloverdale was 2-3 in conference play.

The teams played on April 25, with Cascade winning 8-2.

North Putnam (4-9) and South Putnam (9-9-1) will play the 5 p.m. game the following day, with the Cougars looking to avenge a 4-3 loss to the Eagles on April 25.

Southmont, Monrovia and the host Wildcats round out the seven-team field.

Greencastle (3-9) will play its first game in the Class 3A Indian Creek sectional at 7:30 p.m. on May 24 against the host Braves (6-8).

Other teams in the six-school tourney are Indianapolis Northwest, Indianapolis Washington, Beech Grove and Danville.

Class 2A

South Vermillion sectional

May 23

Cascade vs. Cloverdale, 5 p.m.

May 24

North Putnam vs. South Putnam, 5 p.m.

Southmont vs. Monrovia, 7 p.m.

May 25

South Vermillion vs. Cascade-Cloverdale winner, 5 p.m.

North Putnam-South Putnam winner vs. Southmont-Monrovia winner, 7 p.m.

May 26

Winners of May 25 games in championship, 7 p.m.

Class 3A

Indian Creek sectional

May 23

Indianapolis Northwest vs. Indianapolis Washington, 5:30 p.m.

Beech Grove vs. Danville, 7:30 p.m.

May 24

Winners of May 23 games in semifinals, 5:30 p.m.

Greencastle vs. Indian Creek, 7:30 p.m.

May 26

Winners of May 24 games in championship, 6 p.m.