|
Thursday, 01 March 2007 |
BY DEE GRENERT FOR THE LEADER
PLYMOUTH — Members of Oregon-Davis’ boys basketball team occupied some of the best seats at The Rock for the Class A girls basketball semi-state clash Saturday.
Clad in old school O-D jerseys, with the exception of Adam Pflugshaupt who opted for a T-shirt, the boys team stood together in the first row of the O-D student section, enthusiastically cheering the Lady Cats to a 77-47 rout of Lapel.
While the Lady Cats gear up for this Saturday’s Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) Class A state championship battle against Wood Memorial at Conseco Fieldhouse, the Bobcats have a little business of their own to attend to.
O-D, the top-ranked boys team in Class A with a sparkling 20-1 record, opens its Class A Sectional 50 title defense Wednesday against Argos at Culver Community’s John R. Nelson Gymnasium.
According to junior starter Ryne Sweeney, the girls’ success provides him with a little extra incentive.
“Watching them win motivates me,” Sweeney said. “They’ve shown us it can be done.”
Senior guard Nathan Ferch appreciates the historical significance of his team’s quest.
“It’s unheard of to have two teams from the same school going to state,” Ferch said. “It’s just unheard of. We hope to be able to make it happen.”
In fact, the last school to send both its boys and girls basketball teams to the state finals was Bloomfield in 1998 – the IHSAA’s first year under the multi-class tournament format.
The Lady Cardinals claimed the state’s first Class A basketball title, while the boys came up short against Lafayette Catholic.
In 1990, Bedford North Lawrence and Mr. Basketball Damon Bailey upended Concord in the boys state championship game, just weeks after the Lady Stars fell to Huntington North in the title round
However, no school has produced both boys and girls state champions in the same season, something senior Brandon Johnston wants to change.
“We’re ready for the tournament,” he said. “We’ve got our goal set high.”
Although he enjoyed the Lady Cats’ semi-state win, he said his impetus for a deep tourney runs stems from his team’s gut-wrenching 64-63 semi-state overtime loss to Tri-Central last season.
“We’ve been motivated all along,” Johnston noted. “This is very exciting for our girls. I hope it will carry over for us. But we’ve been hungry to go back ever since we got beat in overtime in the semi-state last year. We just made too many mistakes at the end. We want another chance.”
And while excitement and enthusiasm seem certain to reign at O-D this week, Ferch and Sweeney said not to worry about the Bobcats losing focus.
“The girls support us and we come here and support the girls,” Ferch said. “It’s exciting, but we’ll be ready to take care of business when we hit the court.”
“We’ll just do what we have to do,” Sweeney added.
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 09 March 2007 )
|
