Sundays are for celebrating the week gone by in high school basketball!
Now that the boys season is officially underway, Bounce will check in every Sunday with some of the important notes from the week gone by.
Sometimes, we will have separate columns for girls and boys basketball and some weeks, like this one, it will be a bit of a longer one all combined.
And also, I urge you to vote in our Performance of the Week votes, which also open every single Sunday, brought to you by the fine folks at Crazy Pinz. But without further ado, what did we learn this week?
PLAYERS STEPPING UP IN NEW ROLES
A new season means new roles. And early season success for some teams is pretty contingent on getting guys to step up immediately. Luckily for teams like Homestead, Carroll and Westview, it was a quick start to that.
Homestead has had a lot of adversity they’ve had to work through lately and kudos to the team for being able to even mentally take the court for their annual Thanksgiving eve battle with Huntington North. It was already going to be a different lineup for them, but people got to be quickly introduced to Payton Rhinehart and Michael Raudenbush. The pair of shooters each had 12 in Homestead’s win and it established them as immediate threats on a team we knew had options but didn’t know where the first threats were going to come from for sure.
Mack Welker, on Wednesday, became the fifth freshman to play opening night varsity minutes for Homestead in the past 15 seasons. That is a major thing when you look at the other guys to do that: Zach Terrell, Caleb Swanigan, Jake Archbold and Luke Goode. Not bad company at all for Welker.
Jaiyre Sampson just added to the scariness that Carroll‘s offense is going to be this season. With Cannen Houser and Jaxon Pardon expected to have great seasons and therefore draw a lot of defensive attention, a third high level scorer is massive for a Carroll team who could make conference and postseason waves. He scored a team high 21 points with three assists in the 66-49 win over Norwell; he added another team high 17 points Saturday in a 72-66 loss to Penn. And speaking of Norwell, even in a loss, there have to be a lot of people intrigued by Ashton Federspiel‘s 32 points against Carroll to open the season. Is Norwell what they’ve been the last few years? Probably not. But for those wondering who would take control offensively in the Knights lineup…you probably have your answer now.
Westview too has some really good pieces back, but Wyatt Zepp is going to make them hard to beat many nights. He knocked down a three pointer that helped hold off any Bethany Christian hopes on Tuesday to cap a 23 point first game in a Warrior uniform.
Another player who’s team didn’t win opening night, but stepped up was Ashton Dressler at Canterbury. The senior has been a consistent part of this lineup for some time and he scored 19 points and pulled down five rebounds while shooting 7-of-12 from the field.
COLUMBIA CITY IS THE STATE’S BEST?
Saturday, the Columbia City girls battled the #1 team in the state in Hamilton Southeastern. And the Eagles, well they weren’t the ones leaving with a tally in the loss column.
Addison Baxter scored 28 and Kyndra Sheets added 15 points. Anisa and Tessa Tonkel each had three steals in the game.
Yours truly didn’t get to see the 67-51 win for the Eagles originally but thanks to the joy of IHSAATV and the ISC Network, I was able to watch the replay and I have to fully agree with what IndyStar writer Brian Haenchen said on X after the game: “honestly, it didn’t feel that close.”
So here is the question: when the best team in the state loses to an undefeated team with the solid resume that Columbia City already has (lets not forget that Snider win), then isn’t that winning team the new best team in the state?
The answer should be a resounding yes and the Eagles’ placement at the top of Sunday’s new IBCA poll, with the most first place votes, is a perfect place to put them at this point in the season. Columbia City, as we have already talked about lately, just do not make mistakes. This is a complete team who doesn’t seem to even know how to take their foot off the gas.
With there being no OTH Power Poll this week, it felt only right to mention this big win here and the historic IBCA Poll ranking that it led to. Columbia City is the new current standard in the state and that is pretty cool if you ask me.
LUERS GIRLS ARE PROVING A POINT
If any team has taken offense to Bounce’s weekly power polls on the girls basketball side, it is probably Bishop Luers.
The Knights came out of last weekend 3-0 and on the cusp of personal top 10. I’m willing to bet they felt like they deserved more. Now, after another win over a team I did have ranked and have been impressed with in Eastside, I got no more excuses on tap.
Luers has been fantastic and eventually, you have to say that unbeaten is unbeaten regardless of the opponents. Wins over South Side and Mississinewa didn’t move the needle and a win over Central Noble was a solid one. But beating an Eastside team that had been rolling through their schedule is a first borderline marquee win for Bishop Luers.
In the win over Eastside, Annika Davis and Miley Wareing were fantastic. The duo each scored 15 points with Davis adding three steals and Wareing grabbing eight rebounds. Davis continues to be one of the conference’s biggest underrated stars while Wareing is building nicely on her borderline breakout season a year ago.
What it does do though is not just move Luers up the ladder in a power poll situation, it also makes us start being really intrigued about future SAC matchups for the Knights. Their first big in conference challenge comes December 8 against Northrop. Two of the best teams in the SAC and the Knights at that point could be rolling even more than they are now. They also. get Homestead on December 15 and Snider on the 21st, so by the time we reach the new year, Luers will have had a chance to make a substantial mark.
Until then, Huntington North and Bellmont are on the schedule and I like those games too.
Either way you cut it, its time for the Knights to get some bigger acknowledgement.
NE8 POTENTIAL/I WAS WRONG
So my first boys basketball picks of the season laid an egg immediately on Tuesday with two wrong picks that actually have me excited about some Northeast 8 potential.
DeKalb topped Northrop in what was a nice teacher versus student coach battle and the game really did play out like a chess match in ways. Northrop and coach Shane Merryman were prepared for the Barons in a lot of ways, but DeKalb execution was just smoother at this point in the season.
Caden Pettis had a great first outing of his senior season, working through contact and being quite methodical on how he played. The DeKalb guard had 19 points on opening and night and sank one of my first game predictions. DeKalb has some nice size, good aggression, intelligence and a leader in Pettis. Tuesday’s opening game, even if I was wrong about it, was a great start for a DeKalb team with question marks headed into the season. The Barons then also picked up a Saturday win over county opponent Eastside.
The same could be said for their conference running mates from East Noble, who I also had losing on Tuesday night. They also did not.
Instead, the Knights revved up their full court pressure early and forced West Noble’s guards into incredibly uncomfortable situations. The pressure was applied with a lot of intelligence from the opening tip for the Knights. Almost immediately in the game, the pressure led to a Kobe Ritchie transition basket and another quick Ryker Quake pass break up.
It was a pretty chaotic first game both ways, which you expect for opening night, but East Noble was really succeeding in the chaos. The pressure was good, forcing West Noble standout Bradyn Barth out on the wing to help early more than the Chargers probably wanted. Eventually, he started to post up, but again East Noble was solid on doubling him on the catch, making everything Barth did difficult.
Offensively, East Noble moved the ball very well, forcing the Chargers to collapse hard on the dribble drive, leaving shooters wide open in the corners. West Noble worked hard to make it a seven point game in the third before it ballooned back up to 16 quickly and East Noble rolled. The first opening night win of Brandon Durnell‘s coaching career was led by Ritchie’s 18 points and nine rebounds, while Nathan Bowker added 15 points. The Knights then picked up another big win Saturday, beating Lakeland, with Ritchie posting an 11 point/10 rebound double double.
And sure, I was also wrong about Bellmont on Saturday when they ultimately beat Woodlan. But, to be fair, Bounce is also one of the very few people who considered Bellmont a NE8 contender this preseason. So there is that.
OTHER NOTES
South Adams’ Macy Pries surpassed 1,000 career points Tuesday in a loss to Leo. Pries scored 27 points in the game; she is the 5th player in program history to reach the milestone…Norwell’s Vanessa Rosswurm posted a career high 30 points Tuesday in a win over Concordia…Mason Jolloff scored 33 points for Lakewood Park on Tuesday; on Saturday, LP’s opponent Fremont saw Conner Slee match that 33 point mark (currently the area boys single game high) as he hit 7 three pointers…Trey Yoder hit another game winner to start the season Wednesday with a put back with 1.9 seconds left for Woodlan to top New Haven…With their win Friday over Woodlan, the Jay County girls have now not lost a regular season ACAC game since a 50-40 loss to South Adams on December 23, 2016…Prairie Heights girls beat Garrett Saturday for the first time in 21 years, led by 20 points from Olivia Boots.
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