Girls basketball’s regular season has come to an end and that means that Sectional play starts this week.
How far teams in the area may be able to go this season is yet to be seen. But what we do know is that champions will be crowned on Saturday night and Bounce is here to tell you who he thinks hoists those trophies, who they beat to win the hardware and how they got there in the first place.
Click here to find a complete list of the Sectional draw.
CLASS 4A CONCORD SECTIONAL
With the sixth best combined record of any Sectional in the state, this is going to be a real fun one even if it only features one of our area teams in Warsaw.
Fans of Northeast Indiana should too be a bit knowledgeable a bit about Northridge, who has had a fantastic year behind another fantastic year from Eva Fisher. The Raiders should have a fun first game with Penn but getting to the finals shouldn’t be hard.
The same goes for Warsaw with likely the easiest of any games in the Sectional opposite Concord with the winner getting Elkhart on Friday. This Tiger team is incredibly balanced with three players averaging between 12.1 and 12.4 points per game. Brooke Winhcester and Brooke Zartman have gotten a lot of praise but freshman Joslyn Bricker is actually leading the trio in scoring. Hard to find a more balanced effort anywhere in this balanced Sectional
FINAL PREDICTION: Warsaw beats Northridge
CLASS 4A DEKALB SECTIONAL
Northrop and Carroll will square off on Tuesday and it’s a really fun game where you shouldn’t, at all, count Carroll out. But the Bruins are the SAC champions for the first time in any of their players’ lifetimes for a reason. This is a team that isn’t even at full strength but has so much more firepower than anyone else in this Sectional. The Jackson sisters won’t let up this week and Brooklyn McLemore is playing her best basketball of the season. The Bruins should top Carroll and roll through East Noble in route to a final.
The other final spot should be a no brainer too as Snider will away the winner of North Side and DeKalb. Johnea Donahue just broke the Panthers single season steals record on Friday night and Snider’s defensive pressure is so tough. Who will they get on Friday? Well it’s a great chance for either DeKalb or North to get a Sectional game win with DeKalb having the biggest dry spell since 2010 in that department; my money is on North to pull out the win.
No matter how you cut it, it sets up a Northrop/Snider rematch for the finals and if you were there for their first game, you are salivating over a second matchup between these two teams.
Bounce won’t make someone happy here but I sat courtside for the first battle and I think this one comes down to who plays hungrier on Saturday night.
FINAL PREDICTION: Snider beats Northrop
CLASS 4A HUNTINGTON NORTH SECTIONAL
This one has the 11th best combined record of any Sectional in the state and right at the top, three teams should tell you that anything can happen here amongst them.
Tuesday brings two really balanced games with South Side and New Haven both scrapping for a Sectional win and just their third of the season and then Homestead and Columbia City battle as a possible defacto championship game on a Tuesday…and we all know how I feel about that. The reality is here that this game was a toss up around a week ago and then the Eagles shocked the world taking out Northrop.
So call Bounce a little quick to judge here but Columbia City is fantastic and, in many eyes, claimed the best in the area tag with their win over Northrop last week. That tag doesn’t change and the Eagles upend Homestead, sending them home without a postseason win for the first time since 2018, which is also the last time they didn’t win a Sectional title…that’s my prediction.
That sets up a fun one against a much improved Wayne team. Kudos to Wayne for the season they have had, it has been a fun one. But Columbia City is too good and they will go to the finals opposite NE8 opponent and host Huntington North. With Taylor Double being one of the best players to ever come through the Vikings program and plenty of clutch gene players around her, the Vikings are going to be a problem this entire Sectional. But enough of a problem?
FINAL PREDICTION: Columbia City beats Huntington North
These opinions represent those of Bounce and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Bounce on Twitter at Bounce_OTH
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