Class of 2023 was one filled with exceptional talent across the 260
2023 was a great year for talented players to shine at the biggest stage and breaking records. On the girls’ side, you had an unprecedented ACAC scoring record that was shattered by Jay County grad Renna Schwieterman and her 1,754 career points. Now she’s taking her talents to help Purdue Fort Wayne achieve their best start ever in the division 1 era of college basketball.
In the NECC, you had a plethora of exceptional talent around the Northeast corner with Peyton Hartsough of Lakeland, Brea Garber of Fairfield, Bailey Kelham of Garrett and Madison Vice of Central Noble. Hartsough went on to join her sister Bailey on the 1,000-point list helping Lakeland achieve a run of sustained success.
Madison Vice arguably had one of the most dominant senior seasons in the NECC’s recent memory averaging 18.4 points per game to finish as the program’s 3rd all-time leading scorer, and she alongside Meghan Kiebel led CN to a 26-3 record and a Semistate championship game appearance. Vice is currently finding success at Sienna Heights, while Kiebel was apart of a national soccer championship at Bethel.
Garrett’s Bailey Kelham shattered the school’s overall scoring record (1,772 career points) that had previously been set for 50 years, leading Garrett to another sectional championship in Bob Lapadot’s final year as head coach. Kelham is finding tremendous success as a freshman at Huntington University under Darby Maggard. I will discuss Brea Garber on the next section.
Huntington North’s Taylor Double set the program record for career made threes and also became the program’s most recent 1,000 point scorer. Now she’s finding herself at a very successful Marian program.
Even if you go through the SAC, it was a such a strong year that capped off careers from players such as Homestead’s Ali Stephens and Molly Stock, Carroll’s Kayla Gibbs and Taylor Fordyce, Northrop’s Saniya and Nevaeh Jackson, and Concordia’s Annaka Nelson to name a few.
On the boys’ side, it was a year highlighted by 2 unprecedented scoring records broken at 2 respective schools. West Noble’s Austin Cripe became the school’s all-time leading scorer and led the Chargers to a 21-4 record and sweeping NECC hardware, something that hadn’t come close to happening in nearly 4 decades.
In the NE8, Norwell’s Luke McBride shattered the school’s 35-year old scoring record set by Butler legend Darin Archbold. With his 1,877 career points, McBride came within 40 points of the Wells County scoring mark. Nevertheless, Norwell was able to record a historic NE8 repeat and came up just short of repeating as sectional champions.
Let’s not forget Columbia City’s Andrew Hedrick and New Haven’s Darrion Brooks had dominant performances in their own right that helped their team achieve a great deal of success, especially for CC who saw the program turnaround for their first steak of winning seasons since the 2015-16 season. Hedrick, Cripe, and McBride are all teammates on the Bethal basketball program.
Lastly, we cannot forget the school record at Adams Central being broken by Ethan Poling. While Isaac Schultz gets a lot of attention for good reason, Poling led last season’s Jets to their first 20-win campaign in program history and fought hard in a close loss to Blackhawk Christian.
Two Local Teams Came Away with a State Championship
The 2023 calendar will forever be remembered by Fairfield and Blackhawk Christian fans as a year they hoisted a state championship. For Blackhawk, they had already won a state championship on two different occasions in the Marc Davidson era led by Caleb Furst.
However, when you look deeply into how that season started and the storylines that came with the 2022-23 Braves, I think this run is more memorable from an emotional standpoint because it was the year they won that 2A state title for Coach Davidson. Likewise, the Braves were a very good team in their own way under Matt Roth with Gage Sefton and Josh Furst leading the way as seniors, which has since passed the torch to Kellen Pickett to lead this year’s team.
On the girls’ side, Fairfield had never been to a state finals in girls basketball before that season, and had never hoisted a state title. That whole season was just a season of destiny for the Falcons led by seniors Bailey Willard, Brea Garber and Morgan Gawthrop. Garber became one of the greatest players in NECC history, and second on the school’s all-time scoring list. More importantly, she led the team on all counts and became the heartbeat of a team with a special culture.
The Garber family connection, the tight-knit group of girls, and a United community of Fairfield basketball fans. Defense, teamwork, and a sense of belief all factored into their ability to beat Corydon Central and win the biggest trophy of them all. The Falcons soared to the highest level possible, and will be remembered for an eternity.
While Coach Brodie Garber retired as a head coach, and some of the talent graduated, the culture clearly hasn’t. In fact, great programs find ways to sustain it, not graduate it. And in the case of Kyle Hartman, that is a very concrete point.
The Last Month of 2023 Gave Us One of the Greatest Girls’ Basketball Games Ever Played
It sounds like recency bias, but when you consider how much hype there was entering the 2023-24 season for Norwell and Columbia City, Dec. 8, 2023 was on everyone’s calendar for that one exact reason. It was the NE8 Game of the Year the very moment we found the schedules for this season. It was bound to be special, not just because of the game itself but its cultural impact that it will have on future generations of girls basketball players.
Coach Eric Thornton said when they were down 6 points with 4 minutes left, they knew they had to have a sense of urgency to execute on both ends of the floor at Columbia City in front of a packed crowd. They were patient, did not panicked, and the payoff was tremendous.
“Our team went into the game believing they could win, and they put themselves in position to go take it,” said Thornton on the preparation for the Columbia City game. “When Dekota (Hubble) hit her 2 free throws and we were able to then get one final stop, it’s very emotional because you know what your team has poured into it all.
“There’s risk when you do that…the hurt that you experience if you fall short. I couldn’t have been happier for a group in that moment.”
While the headlines said Norwell won 45-44 over Columbia City, the game was a far greater success beyond that. Sure, that win may be the reason Norwell comes away with an outright NE8 title, there are people that will forever cherish the memories they had on that day, sharing them to their loved ones, and showcasing that excellence to the next generation of girls basketball players. That’s why Columbia City and Norwell have been two of the most successful programs in Northeast Indiana.
Look across the 260 for girls’ basketball alone with Homestead, Carroll, Jay County, Fairfield, recently with Central Noble and Bellmont, Angola for many years when Brandon Appleton coached there, Garrett and even Canterbury at their peak when the Kreiger family coached there and became a state contender. All of these programs along with CC and Norwell have many things in common, and that’s a winning culture that builds programs beyond wins. They do it the right way.
In a lot of ways, this past month has foreshadowed to how good 2024 can be. We still have 2 more months of girls basketball left. And on top of the fact, the class of 2024 for boys basketball is so good. Right now, there’s so much in boys basketball, we don’t know just how much fun we might have in the second half of the season. It feels like any team can get hot at the right time.
And let’s be honest, it’s been a remarkable start for the SAC as a whole in basketball. There’s so much to look forward to for 2024 in Northeast Indiana, and especially in the SAC where the races are only getting hotter by the day.
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