Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 1 Best Sports Event Coverage/Category 11 First place Stunned in overtime Lori Wood, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Second place Repeat Lori Wood, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Third place Danville grappler finishes fifth Jake Thompson, Hendricks County Flyer (Avon) Comments: None given. Best Sports News or Feature Coverage/ Category 12 First place Amid change, Doud finds constant Lori Wood, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Second place Stefanich out as football coach; hiring policy shifts Andrea Preston & Andrew Stanley, South Gibson Star-Times (Fort Branch) Comments: None given. Third place Tumbling for titles Lori Wood, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Best Sports Commentary/Category 13 First place Larry D. Hembree, The Loogootee Tribune Comments: None given. Second place Lori Wood, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Third place Bill Cross, The Times-Post (Pendleton) Comments: None given. Best Editorial Cartoonist/Category 14 See Page 67 for all divisions. Stunned in overtime Lori Wood The Times-Post (Pendleton) Stunned was really the only word that came to mind at about 2 p.m. Saturday, March 10, at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis after the Arabian overtime loss 46-43 to Terre Haute North in the regional semi-final. Stunned that another topranked team in the state had fallen. The Arabian dream season was over and fans could not believe that their team would not play another game this season. ���My heart just aches for all of them,��� Arabian fan Shannon Drye said. Her sentiments echoed through the stands as spectators silently filed out of the fieldhouse. Defensively, the Arabians were on track against a Patriot team with strong shooters and a 6-foot-8 Matt O���Leary, who had averaged 21 points per game this season. They held him to 13 points and eight rebounds, while Ross Sponsler, who normally averages 14 points per game, had just two and only took four shots the entire game. ���I think we did exceptionally well defensively,��� coach Brian Hahn said. The Patriots shot just 44 percent for the game. North made Pendleton work for every attempt at the basket. ���We missed shots we normally make,��� Hahn said. Overall, the Arabians put up a 28.6 percent shooting average for the game, well below their season average of 51 percent. From the beginning, neither team allowed the other to hit their marks, with the Patriots��� O���Leary hitting just 2-of-5 from the field, while Kellen Dunham hit just 1-of-7, but Nick Moore and Matt Wehner kept the pace and the kept the Arabians close. Terre Haute had an 8-7 first quarter lead, but the game ended at the half with a 19-19 tie. Throughout the rest of the game, neither the Patriots nor the Arabian could muster more than a four-point lead. The Arabians took a 29-28 lead to open the final period, but again, neither team could shoot their way to a controlling lead. With just a little more than a minute left to play in regulation time, Sponsler���s only bucket of the game put Terre Haute up 38-36, but Dunham tied the For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Amid change, Doud finds constant Lori Wood The Times-Post (Pendleton) Coaching can be a transient career. Schools change. Players change. Records change. For Pendleton Heights girls basketball coach Shari Doud, through all of the changes, one thing has remained constant. For the past 12 years, Doud���s father, Ed Clark, has been on bench with her. Clark is one of Doud���s assistants. She called him the ���little things��� coach. He seemed to embrace that description. ���I���m always looking for the little things that are going on on the floor, maybe individual tendencies of an opponent, something one of our players needs to make an adjustment in,��� Clark said. Doud has said her father is a fundamental specialist. During practices, he will work with team members on shooting techniques and other fundamentals. ���It is the little things that make a big difference,��� Clark said. Clark is also the primary scout for the Arabians. ���The scout master��� spends a lot of time looking at game films, looking at the schedules and determining who needs to be scouted. He puts together the scouting reports that prepares the team for their next opponent. ���That���s a real critical person to have on your staff, and he enjoys it,��� Doud said. ���With me being a mom, a wife, a coach, an assistant athletic director, having two sons who play basketball, if I didn���t have someone like him to take care of that kind of stuff, I would really struggle to get it accomplished.��� For Clark, watching Doud go from player to coach has been rewarding. ���I enjoyed watching Shari as a point guard at Mt. Vernon high school running the offense. She wasn���t the primary scorer, but the primary person in the offense itself.��� When Doud went to play college ball at Drake University in Des Moine, Iowa, it presented an opportunity for travel as Clark and his wife would make the journey to watch Doud play. When she got into coaching, Doud asked her dad to join her on the bench, and for Clark that was pure joy to have the chance to coach with her. ���It���s like living a dream to be able to coach with your daughter. Clark has influenced Doud For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Changing history Larry D. Hembree The Loogootee Tribune Dreams are made by aspirations of individuals who long for an outcome different than the situation they currently hold. Perseverance is not giving up on that dream when the going gets tough. Success is the culmination of those dreams with a steady dose of perseverance. For Coach Mike Wagoner, his assistant coaches, the seniors and the remainder of the ball team, the cheerleaders, and the fans, all that remains for the Loogootee Lions��� dream is one more win. From the humblest of beginnings, playing ball on the second floor of the old Ritz Theatre building in the early 1900���s, to the JFK Gymnasium in 1927-28, to perhaps the finest gym (JBA) in single class basketball; from the winningest coach in IHSAA history, to the 29 sectional wins; 10 regionals, 4 semi-states, to the two state runner-up titles, all that remains is one more win to change history. For Bryant Ackerman, the star senior, who reached the Loogootee Lions 1000 point club with his 14th of 25 points Saturday against Edinburgh in the semistate, his dream reaches back to childhood. ���This is what we have dreamt of since we were kids,��� Ackerman said. ���To play for the state championship for the Loogootee Lions.��� It is an elite club in Loogootee basketball history. Prior to the twelve who will dress for the final game this Saturday, only 24 Lions��� basketball players have previously dressed for a chance to win the state championship. One of those 24 players is Noah Callahan, the current Freshmen Coach for the Lions. Callahan was a sophomore on the 2005 state-runner-up team. ���I watched the tape again the other night when we beat Hauser in 2005 to make it to the state championship game,��� Callahan reflected, ���everyone was watching the last shot, but there comes Bart (Hill) down the lane and just tips it in. It was incredible.��� Greg Bateman, who calls the play by play for the Lions on WRZR, commented, ���Bart���s tip in it might be the greatest moment in Loogootee history to this point.��� Others might believe it was Robert Berry���s tip-in at the buzzer in 1986, when Loogootee beat For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Page 17