WIC, area athletes enjoy post-season success

The high school sports year for Putnam County squads officially came to an end with the conclusion of the boys' golf regional on Thursday, but several Western Indiana Conference teams and individual athletes remain alive as the remaining state championships (boys' golf and baseball) will be decided this week.

* Baseball -- WIC champion Northview will take a 24-5 record into Saturday night's Class 3A state championship game against Western (15-12) at Victory Field.

The Knights defeated Evansville Memorial 5-0 on Saturday in the Jasper Semistate. Memorial had eliminated the powerful Jasper Wildcats in the regional round, but Northview rode the strong right arm of sophomore Braydon Tucker over the Tigers.

Tucker, who has already committed to play collegiately for Indiana, gave up seven hits to Memorial while walking four and striking out two. He was the hitting star as the Knights won the Crawfordsville Regional title 11-4 over Indian Creek.

Northview has just two seniors, second baseman/pitcher Nate Thomas (headed to play at Lincoln Trail College) and catcher Dalton Shaw (who will play at Indiana-Southeast), and with a 24-6 record may be the favorite to win the first state championship for the school in any sport.

Other championship games are Zionsville (30-4) vs. Roncalli (22-9) on Friday night in Class 4A, Daleville (20-9) vs. Lanesville (15-11) in Class A at 1 p.m. on Saturday and Lafayette Central Catholic (33-1) against Providence (26-2) in Class 2A at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

Clay City had joined Northview as a regional champion and lost a heartbreaker on Saturday to Lanesville in the Jasper Senmistate. Purdue-bound pitcher Hunter Wolfe struck out 12 batters to keep his team in the game, but made a throwing error on a bunt in the bottom of the ninth that allowed the winning run to score.

* Softball -- The state finals were Saturday with the four games being decided by a total of five runs.

Borden defeated Frontier 5-3 in the Class A game, the only one of the four not decided by just one run. Evansville Mater Dei defeated Boone Grove 1-0 in Class 2A, while Lebanon defeated Kankakee Valley 2-1 in Class 3A and Avon got two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to defeat Penn 4-3 and win its first-ever softball state championship.

Laura Patterson of Lebanon was named the Class 3A Mental Attitude Award winner. Her father, Tony, was a star player for the L&M boys' basketball team in the mid-1980s that was one of the best in the state despite having only around 100 students.

Owen Valley won the West Vigo sectional by defeating the hosts 9-4, then captured its first-ever regional title by defeating Danville 4-0 and Silver Creek 5-4.

The Patriots lost to eventual champ Lebanon 3-0 in the Salem Semistate.

* Boys' golf -- Garrett Compliment of Cascade advanced to the state finals by placing second overall and first among players from non-advancing teams with a 69.