Columbus East’s Madelyn Poe, center, drives to the basket between Columbus North’s Kaylie Harmon, left, and Kaitlin White, right, during the annual crosstown rivalry game at Columbus North High School in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023.
The Republic file photo
It will be one of the biggest upsets in the state of Indiana if a team other than Franklin raises the sectional trophy on Saturday.
The Grizzly Cubs are the heavy favorite to repeat as sectional champions once again in the Class 4A Whiteland Sectional that features Columbus North and Columbus East.
According to the Jeff Sagarin Rating, Class 4A No. 6 Franklin is the second-biggest favorite in the state among the 16 Class 4A sectionals to only South Bend St. Joseph, who is a bigger favorite than the Grizzly Cubs. John Harrell’s website calculates Franklin with an 82% chance to win the sectional, second behind to South Bend St. Joseph once again at 96%.
Fortunately for the Bull Dogs and Olympians, they each drew byes and won’t have to play until Friday. The bad news is that they may have to wait another year to end their respective sectional title droughts. North hasn’t won a sectional title since 2017, and East hasn’t won the sectional since 2018.
While all the talk is about the Grizzly Cubs, North and East will embrace the underdog roles and look to surprise many people next week.
North coach Brett White recalls being in this same situation last year where the Bull Dogs lost big to Franklin in the regular season, to then having a chance to win the game and only lose by three points to the Grizzly Cubs in the sectional.
“The first thing we already talked about is believing in what we’re going to have to do,” White said. “At sectional time, funny things happen. It’s not exactly the way people think it’s going to end up, and that’s why we play the games, so we’re going to go out and have a plan, and we’re going to compete.”
In Tuesday’s action, East Central will take on host Whiteland in the first game, and then Franklin plays Shelbyville in the second game.
The Olympians will take on the Whiteland-East Central winner in Friday’s first semifinal game at 6 p.m., followed by North taking on the Franklin-Shelbyville winner in the second semifinal. The two semifinal winners will play for the championship at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
North faced both Shelbyville and Franklin in the regular season. The Bull Dogs defeated the Golden Bears 51-46 in a Nov. 28 matchup and lost to the Grizzly Cubs 67-36 in a Nov. 4 contest. It came down to 3-point shooting in North’s matchup with Franklin, when the Grizzly Cubs held a 9-1 advantage behind the arc.
“They get a lot of their energy from making shots on the 3-point line and kind of spreading you out driving and kicking. They have a lot of options that can shoot the ball from the 3-point line. That’s definitely something we’ll work on,” White said. “The nice thing is if we do play them on Friday, we’ve got four days next week to prepare. We’ll have a game plan that we’ll put in place, and we’ll try to carry that out against them.”
Columbus East defeated East Central 36-25 in a Nov. 15 matchup. While the Olympians didn’t play Whiteland or Franklin, in the regular season, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t familiar with them should the potential clash happen.
Olympians coach Kaitlyn Phillips was once a player and assistant coach with the Warriors prior to taking the head coaching position at East. Should the two teams clash on Friday, it would practically be a coin flip. The Sagarin Rating has Whiteland as a one-point favorite over the Olympians.
“Assuming they defeat East Central, Whiteland is a team that is about as streaky as we are. They have a lot more varsity experience than we do and a lot more returning, but they’re a team who as long as we can keep them from getting hot outside the 3-point line, I think we’ll be OK,” Phillips said. “They are going to have an advantage playing at home. They should shoot the ball pretty well at home. They always have. If we can keep them out of their rhythm and from taking open shots, we have a strong chance to pull that one out.”
During her time as an assistant at Whiteland, Phillips saw how potent the Franklin offense can be, especially with its loaded senior class.
“If we do get to Franklin, obviously, there’s no (bigger) key that we’ve got to keep the shooters off the line, make them dribble-drivers and hopefully shoot the ball well ourselves,” Phillips said. “You can’t beat Franklin without shooting 35% from 3 at least, so we’d have to have a good night.”
For Hauser, the good news is that favorite North Decatur is in the other half of the draw. The bad news is that they Jets will have to win three games to capture the crown.
It starts when they take on Switzerland County at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Should they prevail, Hauser will take on South Ripley in the second semifinal on Friday, and would face the winner of the North Decatur-Milan matchup in Friday’s first semifinal game in the championship game on Saturday. The Jets haven’t won a sectional title since 2005.
The Pacers defeated Hauser 55-32 in a Dec. 14 matchup in Vevay earlier in the season. The lastest Sagarin Rating shows the Jets as a 15-point underdog heading into Tuesday’s contest. North Decatur is the favorite over South Ripley in the sectional.
North Decatur is the host of the sectional, and Hauser ended its regular season playing the Chargers Tuesday. Prior to the game at North Decatur, the last road game Hauser had was against Switzerland County on Dec. 14.
“We’re obviously going to go into that tournament as the underdog, so we’ll play that role. We’ll try to ruin people’s night’s here coming forward,” Hauser coach Kyle Shipp said. “We haven’t played a road game in a while, so it will be nice to get back on the road and figure it out. Also, the sectional is at North Decatur, so we got their gym feel, so we should be pretty comfortable come sectional time in the gym.”
