INDIANAPOLIS – The road to a sectional championship got tougher Monday for several WCHS athletic programs at least for the next couple of years.
The IHSAA Executive Committee announced its new sectional assignments for eight sports for the 2015-16 and 20-16-17 school years. The Committee unanimously accepted the recommendations of the respective realignment committees for eight of its team sports. Realignment statewide affects boys basketball, girls basketball, football, volleyball, baseball, softball, girls soccer and boys soccer.
The big change for the Tigers comes in boys basketball, girls basketball and volleyball. Penn, a perennial power in all three sports, joins the Tigers in what will now be seven-team sectional tournaments. The field adds the Kingsmen to the mix with Warsaw, Concord, Northridge, Goshen, Elkhart Memorial and Elkhart Central in all three of the sports. Adding intrigue to the equation for some is that the Penn boys basketball program is under the direction of Al Rhodes, the former very successful coach at Warsaw.
Penn has been grouped in recent years in the same sectional with the South Bend schools and Mishawaka. The Kinsmen are 61-13 the last three years in boys basketball with one sectional title. The Penn girls hoops team has went 113-16 the last five years with five sectional crowns and a pair of Class 4-A state runner-up finishes.
“The addition of Penn to our sectional makes an already competitive sectional even more so,” said Warsaw boys basketball coach Doug Ogle. “Whoever wins the thing is going to have to be playing well. Coach Al was a great mentor for me so it will be emotional if and when meet in a sectional setting.”
The biggest change comes for athletic programs at both Whitko and Rochester as each school dropped from Class 3-A down to Class 2-A back in March.
Whitko will now be in boys and girls basketball sectionals with Bremen, Central Noble, Fremont, LaVille, Prairie Heights and Westview. Rochester will be paired with Cass, Manchester, Northfield, Oak Hill, Southwood and Wabash in boys and girls hoops. That grouping will be the same for both schools in volleyball sectionals too.
The Wildcats football sectional will now include Bluffton, Central Noble, Churubusco, Eastside, Prairie Heights, South Adams and Woodlan. The Zebras field will include Bremen, Cass, Delphi, Manchester, Oak Hill, Wabash and Winamac.
The Class 2-A softball sectional will include Whitko and Rochester, along with Manchester, Northfield, Oak Hill, Southwood and Wabash.
The Class 2-A baseball sectional has the Wildcats and Zebras together, along with Cass, Manchester, Oak Hill, Southwood and Wabash.
Whitko boys soccer will play in a Class 1-A sectional with Manchester, Woodlan and Fort Wayne Blackhawk. Rochester will be paired in a Class 1-A tourney with Caston, Peru, North Miami and Maconaquah.
The Whitko girls soccer team’s Class 1-A sectional includes Peru, Oak Hill, North Miami, Manchester, Maconaquah, Eastbrook and Blackford. The Rochester girls will play in a field with Mishawaka Marian, LaVille, Glenn, Culver, Bremen and Argos.
The football playoff landscape has changed too. The Class 4-A sectional field with Wawasee now includes Plymouth and Columbia City to replace Leo and Fort Wayne Dwenger. The tourney still has NorthWood, Northridge, East Noble, DeKalb and Angola as in the recent past.
The Class 3-A football sectional for Tippecanoe Valley now includes Fairfield, Jimtown, Culver Academies, West Noble, Lakeland, Garrett and Heritage.
The Class 5-A sectional has Elkhart Memorial and Elkhart Central now paired with Mishawka, South Bend Adams and Michigan City. Another 5-A sectional has Concord and Goshen now grouped with Fort Wayne Snider and Fort Wayne North.
Sectional hosts for the 2015-16 school year have not been announced yet.
Complete sectional assignments for the state can be found at ihsaa.org.