Sectional draw day remains – and will remain for all of Blitz’s time on this fine rotating rock of ours – one of the most exciting days of the season.
From teams looking to flip their regular season fortunes with a positive draw to others that are aiming to continue to dominate, storylines are aplenty wherever you look.
The Sunday before Week 9 is just plain interesting, both fun and cruel depending on who you are. So with this season’s draw handled, lets look at some of the big winners and the so-called losers from how the ping-pong balls bounced.
WINNER: NORTH SIDE
North Side is going on Year 35 without a sectional title, but the draw did the Legends some favors in potentially ending that drought.
Coach Ben Johnson’s team does have to open on the road, but it will take on 2-6 Goshen, the lone team currently under .500 in the four-team field in Sectional 11. That pits the two Northern Lakes Conference squads, Warsaw and Concord, against each other in the other semifinal.
Concord handled Warsaw 38-7 in mid-September in a league matchup, giving the Minutemen the edge. But don’t count out Warsaw, which avenged a regular-season loss to Concord in sectional play a year ago.
Regardless of whether Concord and Warsaw win, North Side will get the home game as the team at the bottom of the bracket who will go on the road to start the playoffs.
It couldn’t have been a better draw for North.
LOSER: HUNTINGTON NORTH
Remember that magical Vikings run last year that saw them capture their first sectional crown in 21 years? Well, it’s going to be a more difficult road this season.
Last season, Huntington North opened postseason play at home against Frankfort and Marion, two sub-.500 squads. This year, it opens at Logansport, which enters Week 9 with a 6-2 record that includes a dominating victory at Twin Lakes, a team ranked in the Top 15 in Class 3A.
While Lebanon at the top of the bracket may be the Vikings’ biggest competition outside of Logansport in the quest for back-to-back sectional titles, starting off with a tough road game against a quality foe isn’t something Huntington North had to contend with last year until the championship game at Lebanon.
WINNER: EAST NOBLE
As is typical, Sectional 19 is brutal. Whoever emerges from the field will definitely have earned it.
There is always the possibility that a contender in a tough sectional draws aces when it comes to the road to the title game. For Sectional 19, it is East Noble.
The upper half of the bracket has the Knights with two-win foes New Haven and South Side along with winless Wayne. Meanwhile, the lower half will see Bishop Dwenger, Leo, DeKalb and Columbia City battle it out to get to the final.
All three of the teams potentially facing East Noble in the first two rounds have some athletes, so the Knights cannot afford to look ahead, but they will be comfortable favorites in Weeks 10 and 11.
LOSER: BLUFFTON
After finding itself in the same Class 2A sectional with Adams Central beginning last year, the Tigers promptly drew the Flying Jets to open the playoffs in 2024.
Heading into Sunday’s draw, the prevailing thought would be that Bluffton would draw its powerful conference mate out of the gate again.
But it did not happen! Instead, Bluffton will head to Turtle Town for its first matchup with Churubusco since 1982. A road game to battle a pesky, physical Eagles team that just toppled West Noble to open the postseason? Not ideal.
And of course, if Bluffton can win and get into the sectional semis, it will likely face…Adams Central, which opens at home against one-win Central Noble.
WINNER: NORTHROP
It appears inevitable that we will get a Carroll-Northrop rematch in Sectional 2, but Northrop avoided the potential hiccup to that theory.
Carroll will need to travel to Elkhart to open the playoffs in a game that will present a challenge to the Chargers. The two teams scrimmaged prior to the season, so the teams know each other’s tendencies. That is advantageous for both teams, although Elkhart quarterback Micah Jarrell’s running prowess was not on display in the preseason, with the junior having rushed for 720 yards and 11 touchdowns in addition to throwing for 11 scores.
While the Chargers deal with that, Northrop will stay home and entertain Snider, which, while potentially dangerous, is a better matchup than either Carroll or Elkhart in Round 1.
LOSER: WARSAW
It was a special postseason last year for the Tigers, who captured their first-ever regional and semistate tiles on the way to the program’s inaugural appearance in the state finals.
If we are going to see a repeat of that, Warsaw will need to hit the ground running and find a way to beat first-round foe Concord, which handled the Tigers 38-7 back in Week 5.
The first showdown with Concord came at Warsaw, with Round 2 will come at the Minutemen’s home field in Elkhart. While the Tigers did find a way to beat Concord last year after falling to them in the regular-season, the first matchup was a four-point game, not 31.
Warsaw must maximize its bye week before the playoffs begin for Class 5A, because a big task awaits right from the jump.
These opinions represent those of Blitz and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Blitz on Twitter at Blitz_OTH
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