By Dale Hubler, Times-Union Sports Writer

All aboard, next stop Frankort.

Get a seat while you can folks. The Akron Amtrak, the Sevastapol Shuttle, the B-Train from Burket is en route to downtown Indianapolis, and it shows no sign of slowing down.

It's already made stops in Plymouth and West Lafayette, and a routine stop in Frankfort today would only put the throttle down.

This well-oiled machine's fuel supply comes from places like Athens, Burket, Akron, Mentone, Palestine, the outskirts of Warsaw, and Trimble Creek.

This high-powered piece of machinery is Tippecanoe Valley High School's boys basketball team. And its conductor, a silver-haired 61-year-old, dons a dark suit jacket, a tie and light brown khakis rather than pinstriped overalls and has an apprentice, a family operation of sorts.

Except for the occasional tune ups, this machine has fired on all cylinders since this journey, that we'll dub Destination Indianapolis, began months ago.

When Tippecanoe Valley hosted Warsaw in the first game of the 1999-2000 season, most would've said the taller, more experienced, more talented Tigers would run the Vikings out of their own gym.

Instead, Valley, a school that has only five sectional championships (including this year's title) since the school opened in 1975, took the heavily favored Tigers to double overtime before falling 71-68.

And this in a year the Tiger Den faithful was planning on making a trip to the state finals. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not in anyway putting down Al Rhodes and his very successful Tiger program. Afterall, he won the 14th sectional championship of his 20-year career a week ago, and may very well be making his fifth state finals appearance next Saturday.

The simple point I want to make is that Valley's success this year is not a fluke. There's a reason why Bill Patrick's boys are one of just 32 teams (counting all classes) still playing.

And that reason doesn't have a name or jersey number, it's something that can only be taught in a crowdless gym to a player with a willingness to learn.

Yeah, it takes the ball going through the hoop more times than your opponent to win a basketball game. But so many other things make up a championship caliber team. And more often than not, the people who sit in the stands are blind to these factors.

In a time when teams have fallouts over who is going to have the ball in hand at the end of a tight game, whose parents make more money, or who is going to nab headlines in the local paper, the Tippecanoe Valley Vikings are an exception.

At a pep rally last Saturday to celebrate Valley's sectional championship, long time WRSW broadcaster Rita Price-Simpson told a sea of yellow-shirted fans that so many times in her career she's seen talented teams fall to the wayside over simple jealousies or inhouse squablings. She said she didn't see that in the 12 young men seated in front of the crowd.

Think of it in terms of an engine. If it has a mechanic to maintain it, and all pistons are firing at once, the ride is as smooth as a baby's butt. But if one of those pistons can't keep up, it puts pressure on the others, leading to a breakdown.

This train known as Tippecanoe Valley High School's boys basketball team has that mechanic, and all of its pistons are firing at once.

Today the Vikings will travel to Frankort to do battle with 16-7 Pendleton Heights, followed by a possible matchup with No. 1 Andrean for a berth in the state championship.

If I were going to Frankfort, I'd be careful. There's a train on the tracks, and this one ain't stopping. [[In-content Ad]]