Cavemen Will Add A New Hue, New Rivalries To NLC
March 19, 2020 at 12:04 a.m.
MISHAWAKA — Mishawaka High School will bring a new hue — literally, it’ll be maroon; figuratively, it’ll be much more — when it joins the tradition-rich tapestry that is Northern Lakes Conference sports.
There will be iconic old venues the Cavemen can share and intriguing new rivalries to explore. There will be a dash more travel, too, but that seems a minor drawback.
“It just feels so right,” Mishawaka athletic director Dean Huppert said this week of his school corporation becoming part of the NLC, taking effect next fall. “We’re a one-school town with the name of the town as our school, and we want to be like these other NLC schools that are trying to build something with their communities. Even the NLC schools that are consolidations, it’s very much about community.”
Huppert calls the NLC a fit for Mishawaka both in priorities and size.
“One of the things that jumps out to me is our enrollment fits right in the middle,” said Huppert, a longtime local sportscaster who shifted to school administration in 2017.
With an enrollment of 1,477, based on IHSAA figures, Mishawaka will be the fourth-largest school in the eight-member NLC.
Warsaw and Goshen are the two largest at 2,103 and 1,923 students, while Wawasee and NorthWood are the two smallest at 939 and 901. Concord (1,657), Northridge (1,397) and Plymouth (1,097) are the other league members.
“I like that the enrollments aren’t too spread out,” Huppert said.
Mishawaka is coming over to the NLC from the Northern Indiana Conference.
The NIC’s 12-school membership next fall will include an enrollment spectrum stretching from Penn (3,388) and the newly combined Elkhart High (expected to be around 3,185) all the way to Glenn (594) and Bremen (509).
It was Elkhart’s combining of Central and Memorial — approved in 2016, effective next fall — that triggered the NLC’s search for a new eighth member to eventually replace Memorial. Mishawaka was announced as that member in July 2018.
While the Cavemen’s first NLC contest won’t come until Aug. 15, a girls golf matchup against host Wawasee, Huppert says his school has already been made to feel right at home.
“So far, so good,” Huppert said of the transition. “When we were accepted, we were invited to conference meetings right away — our secretary was even invited to a gathering the secretaries have on Lake Wawasee — so it’s been interesting learning about the conference and the bylaws and getting to know the other athletic directors and principals. We felt like we were able to get on board right away.”
Also of importance to Huppert, Mishawaka’s sports giants of the past bought in.
“We’ve been in the NIC since 1927,” Huppert said of Mishawaka, which will exit that league as its last continuous founding member, “so to make a move as bold and forward thinking as we felt this was, we had to make sure from a public standpoint that our forefathers were on board. We met with former athletic directors John Danaher (who died last October) and Jim Aldrich, and people like (legendary wrestling coach) Al Smith, and everybody in the room felt it was the right move.”
With that blessing, it’s been full tilt ahead.
Contest scheduling hasn’t been too much of a challenge for Mishawaka, and even less so for the rest of NLC. In most cases, the Cavemen have simply slotted into the spots that Memorial formerly occupied.
Perhaps the most striking casualty of changing leagues has been the halting, at least temporarily, of the wildly intense football rivalry between Penn and Mishawaka, two schools separated by just 3.5 miles.
That’s because both sides already have their non-conference dates filled through at least 2022 and are intent on honoring those obligations. Huppert said there’s a chance the series will resume in 2023 or 2024.
Meanwhile, the Cavemen get to pick up a new opponent with a catchy storyline already built in by virtue of facing Warsaw.
The Tigers are coached by Bart Curtis, the same man who guided Mishawaka to a 90-35 record with six sectional titles and a semistate crown from 2008 to 2017 before leaving for Warsaw.
“That game is already being called the Bart Bowl,” Huppert said of what will be the first football matchup between the programs in 36 years. “I just wish we were going to have it at Mishawaka in 2020.”
Instead, it’s slated for Sept. 11 at Warsaw.
The 2021 meeting will be in Mishawaka, which will mean a trip for the Tigers to storied Steele Stadium.
That facility opened in 1939. It blends old-time charm with modern amenities, such as one of Indiana’s most advanced video scoreboards.
Mishawaka also features a gymnasium known as The Cave. While some visitors may find the place dark enough to befit the name, it also boasts the novelty, having opened in 1924, of being Indiana’s oldest high school gym in regular use.
The Cavemen’s new conference affiliation gives some programs a first chance to play there. Warsaw, for instance, has never faced Mishawaka anywhere in boys basketball, according to Tiger sports information director Roger Grossman.
The 2020-21 inaugural meeting is set for Feb. 4 at Warsaw, so the Tigers’ first trip to The Cave will have to wait until the following season.
On the girls side, Warsaw will visit Mishawaka on Jan. 13. Those two programs have met as recently as December 2017 as part of a Warsaw holiday tourney, but they’ve squared off just five times overall, and not in Mishawaka in at least 30 years.
As for Wawasee, its conference matchups against the Cavemen in 2020-21 include Oct. 9 at Steele Stadium in football, Jan. 15 at The Cave in boys basketball and Jan. 16 at Wawasee in girls basketball.
The Warriors have never faced Mishawaka in football, and have not faced Mishawaka in girls basketball in at least 20 years.
In boys basketball, though, the schools have been annual non-league opponents in recent years. In fact, three of the last four meetings have gone overtime, with the Cavemen winning them all.
For Wawasee and Warsaw alike, their travel demands don’t change much by virtue of Mishawaka joining the NLC, given that Elkhart Memorial was roughly the same distance.
For Mishawaka, the travel does go up a bit by adding Warsaw (about 55 minutes, 43 miles, per Mapquest) and Wawasee (50/34), among others.
Within the NIC, the Cavemen’s farthest journeys were Glenn (33/31) and New Prairie (28/26), while its matchups against South Bend schools involved relatively few miles.
“I think there’s a stigma of, ‘Oh my gosh, going to Warsaw, we’re going to be home so late,’” Huppert said. “Yeah, it’s a little farther, but you’re not going through a lot of stoplights to Warsaw or Wawasee, and if you look at our schedule, some of the (non-league) places we go are farther, and even some of the closer places we go to involve a lot of lights.”
There seem no stoplights at all in Huppert’s mindset about joining the NLC.
“We already have some existing rivalries,” Huppert said, pointing out that Mishawaka and Concord have engaged in multiple high-stake postseason football matchups in recent years, and Mishawaka and NorthWood have been involved in high-stake wrestling matchups. “I think we’re going to be able to keep some of our existing neighborhood rivalries (through non-league scheduling), and I think there are a lot of new rivalries to come.”
Correction
Due to a source error, the Times-Union incorrectly reported the number of games, and the dates they were played, between Mishawaka and Warsaw in football and girls and boys basketball.
In an effort to set the record straight, below is an updated list of when the schools have competed in those sports, and the scores of those games.
The Times-Union regrets the error.
FOOTBALL - Mishawaka leads series 10-3
1919 - Mishawaka 30, Warsaw 0
1920 - Mishawaka 40, Warsaw 6
1921 - Warsaw 40, Mishawaka 0
1922 - Warsaw 12, Mishawaka 6
1923 - Warsaw 18, Mishawaka 0
1924 - Mishawaka 33, Warsaw 0
1925 - Mishawaka 52, Warsaw 7
1977 - Mishawaka 36, Warsaw 6
1978 - Mishawaka 34, Warsaw 16
1979 – Mishawaka 13, Warsaw 7
1980 – Mishawaka 32, Warsaw 0
1983 - Mishawaka 48, Warsaw 12
1984 - Mishawaka 21, Warsaw 17
BOYS BASKETBALL - Warsaw leads 12-9
1921 – Mishawaka 24, Warsaw 16
1921 – Warsaw 1, Mishawaka 0 (forfeit)
1923 – Warsaw 30, Mishawaka 17
1924 – Mishawaka 19, Warsaw 16
1926 – Mishawaka 37, Warsaw 15
1927 - Mishawaka 31, Warsaw 27
1955 - Mishawaka 63, Warsaw 52
1968 - Warsaw 75, Mishawaka 67
1977 - Mishawaka 68, Warsaw 63
1978 - Warsaw 61, Mishawaka 58
1979 - Warsaw 49, Mishawaka 35
1980 - Warsaw 62, Mishawaka 48
1981 - Warsaw 78, Mishawaka 61
1982 - Mishawaka 59, Warsaw 49
1983 - Mishawaka 71, Warsaw 68
1984 - Warsaw 84, Mishawaka 51
1985 - Warsaw 72, Mishawaka 63
1986 - Warsaw 59, Mishawaka 57
1987 - Mishawaka 60, Warsaw 48
1988 - Warsaw 89, Mishawaka 65
1989 - Warsaw 75, Mishawaka 69
GIRLS BASKETBALL - Warsaw leads 5-0
1987 - Warsaw 60, Mishawaka 60
1989 - Warsaw 68, Mishawaka 32
1990 - Warsaw 73, Mishawaka 16
2017 - Warsaw 56, Mishawaka 41
2018 - Warsaw 43, Mishawaka 28
MISHAWAKA — Mishawaka High School will bring a new hue — literally, it’ll be maroon; figuratively, it’ll be much more — when it joins the tradition-rich tapestry that is Northern Lakes Conference sports.
There will be iconic old venues the Cavemen can share and intriguing new rivalries to explore. There will be a dash more travel, too, but that seems a minor drawback.
“It just feels so right,” Mishawaka athletic director Dean Huppert said this week of his school corporation becoming part of the NLC, taking effect next fall. “We’re a one-school town with the name of the town as our school, and we want to be like these other NLC schools that are trying to build something with their communities. Even the NLC schools that are consolidations, it’s very much about community.”
Huppert calls the NLC a fit for Mishawaka both in priorities and size.
“One of the things that jumps out to me is our enrollment fits right in the middle,” said Huppert, a longtime local sportscaster who shifted to school administration in 2017.
With an enrollment of 1,477, based on IHSAA figures, Mishawaka will be the fourth-largest school in the eight-member NLC.
Warsaw and Goshen are the two largest at 2,103 and 1,923 students, while Wawasee and NorthWood are the two smallest at 939 and 901. Concord (1,657), Northridge (1,397) and Plymouth (1,097) are the other league members.
“I like that the enrollments aren’t too spread out,” Huppert said.
Mishawaka is coming over to the NLC from the Northern Indiana Conference.
The NIC’s 12-school membership next fall will include an enrollment spectrum stretching from Penn (3,388) and the newly combined Elkhart High (expected to be around 3,185) all the way to Glenn (594) and Bremen (509).
It was Elkhart’s combining of Central and Memorial — approved in 2016, effective next fall — that triggered the NLC’s search for a new eighth member to eventually replace Memorial. Mishawaka was announced as that member in July 2018.
While the Cavemen’s first NLC contest won’t come until Aug. 15, a girls golf matchup against host Wawasee, Huppert says his school has already been made to feel right at home.
“So far, so good,” Huppert said of the transition. “When we were accepted, we were invited to conference meetings right away — our secretary was even invited to a gathering the secretaries have on Lake Wawasee — so it’s been interesting learning about the conference and the bylaws and getting to know the other athletic directors and principals. We felt like we were able to get on board right away.”
Also of importance to Huppert, Mishawaka’s sports giants of the past bought in.
“We’ve been in the NIC since 1927,” Huppert said of Mishawaka, which will exit that league as its last continuous founding member, “so to make a move as bold and forward thinking as we felt this was, we had to make sure from a public standpoint that our forefathers were on board. We met with former athletic directors John Danaher (who died last October) and Jim Aldrich, and people like (legendary wrestling coach) Al Smith, and everybody in the room felt it was the right move.”
With that blessing, it’s been full tilt ahead.
Contest scheduling hasn’t been too much of a challenge for Mishawaka, and even less so for the rest of NLC. In most cases, the Cavemen have simply slotted into the spots that Memorial formerly occupied.
Perhaps the most striking casualty of changing leagues has been the halting, at least temporarily, of the wildly intense football rivalry between Penn and Mishawaka, two schools separated by just 3.5 miles.
That’s because both sides already have their non-conference dates filled through at least 2022 and are intent on honoring those obligations. Huppert said there’s a chance the series will resume in 2023 or 2024.
Meanwhile, the Cavemen get to pick up a new opponent with a catchy storyline already built in by virtue of facing Warsaw.
The Tigers are coached by Bart Curtis, the same man who guided Mishawaka to a 90-35 record with six sectional titles and a semistate crown from 2008 to 2017 before leaving for Warsaw.
“That game is already being called the Bart Bowl,” Huppert said of what will be the first football matchup between the programs in 36 years. “I just wish we were going to have it at Mishawaka in 2020.”
Instead, it’s slated for Sept. 11 at Warsaw.
The 2021 meeting will be in Mishawaka, which will mean a trip for the Tigers to storied Steele Stadium.
That facility opened in 1939. It blends old-time charm with modern amenities, such as one of Indiana’s most advanced video scoreboards.
Mishawaka also features a gymnasium known as The Cave. While some visitors may find the place dark enough to befit the name, it also boasts the novelty, having opened in 1924, of being Indiana’s oldest high school gym in regular use.
The Cavemen’s new conference affiliation gives some programs a first chance to play there. Warsaw, for instance, has never faced Mishawaka anywhere in boys basketball, according to Tiger sports information director Roger Grossman.
The 2020-21 inaugural meeting is set for Feb. 4 at Warsaw, so the Tigers’ first trip to The Cave will have to wait until the following season.
On the girls side, Warsaw will visit Mishawaka on Jan. 13. Those two programs have met as recently as December 2017 as part of a Warsaw holiday tourney, but they’ve squared off just five times overall, and not in Mishawaka in at least 30 years.
As for Wawasee, its conference matchups against the Cavemen in 2020-21 include Oct. 9 at Steele Stadium in football, Jan. 15 at The Cave in boys basketball and Jan. 16 at Wawasee in girls basketball.
The Warriors have never faced Mishawaka in football, and have not faced Mishawaka in girls basketball in at least 20 years.
In boys basketball, though, the schools have been annual non-league opponents in recent years. In fact, three of the last four meetings have gone overtime, with the Cavemen winning them all.
For Wawasee and Warsaw alike, their travel demands don’t change much by virtue of Mishawaka joining the NLC, given that Elkhart Memorial was roughly the same distance.
For Mishawaka, the travel does go up a bit by adding Warsaw (about 55 minutes, 43 miles, per Mapquest) and Wawasee (50/34), among others.
Within the NIC, the Cavemen’s farthest journeys were Glenn (33/31) and New Prairie (28/26), while its matchups against South Bend schools involved relatively few miles.
“I think there’s a stigma of, ‘Oh my gosh, going to Warsaw, we’re going to be home so late,’” Huppert said. “Yeah, it’s a little farther, but you’re not going through a lot of stoplights to Warsaw or Wawasee, and if you look at our schedule, some of the (non-league) places we go are farther, and even some of the closer places we go to involve a lot of lights.”
There seem no stoplights at all in Huppert’s mindset about joining the NLC.
“We already have some existing rivalries,” Huppert said, pointing out that Mishawaka and Concord have engaged in multiple high-stake postseason football matchups in recent years, and Mishawaka and NorthWood have been involved in high-stake wrestling matchups. “I think we’re going to be able to keep some of our existing neighborhood rivalries (through non-league scheduling), and I think there are a lot of new rivalries to come.”
Correction
Due to a source error, the Times-Union incorrectly reported the number of games, and the dates they were played, between Mishawaka and Warsaw in football and girls and boys basketball.
In an effort to set the record straight, below is an updated list of when the schools have competed in those sports, and the scores of those games.
The Times-Union regrets the error.
FOOTBALL - Mishawaka leads series 10-3
1919 - Mishawaka 30, Warsaw 0
1920 - Mishawaka 40, Warsaw 6
1921 - Warsaw 40, Mishawaka 0
1922 - Warsaw 12, Mishawaka 6
1923 - Warsaw 18, Mishawaka 0
1924 - Mishawaka 33, Warsaw 0
1925 - Mishawaka 52, Warsaw 7
1977 - Mishawaka 36, Warsaw 6
1978 - Mishawaka 34, Warsaw 16
1979 – Mishawaka 13, Warsaw 7
1980 – Mishawaka 32, Warsaw 0
1983 - Mishawaka 48, Warsaw 12
1984 - Mishawaka 21, Warsaw 17
BOYS BASKETBALL - Warsaw leads 12-9
1921 – Mishawaka 24, Warsaw 16
1921 – Warsaw 1, Mishawaka 0 (forfeit)
1923 – Warsaw 30, Mishawaka 17
1924 – Mishawaka 19, Warsaw 16
1926 – Mishawaka 37, Warsaw 15
1927 - Mishawaka 31, Warsaw 27
1955 - Mishawaka 63, Warsaw 52
1968 - Warsaw 75, Mishawaka 67
1977 - Mishawaka 68, Warsaw 63
1978 - Warsaw 61, Mishawaka 58
1979 - Warsaw 49, Mishawaka 35
1980 - Warsaw 62, Mishawaka 48
1981 - Warsaw 78, Mishawaka 61
1982 - Mishawaka 59, Warsaw 49
1983 - Mishawaka 71, Warsaw 68
1984 - Warsaw 84, Mishawaka 51
1985 - Warsaw 72, Mishawaka 63
1986 - Warsaw 59, Mishawaka 57
1987 - Mishawaka 60, Warsaw 48
1988 - Warsaw 89, Mishawaka 65
1989 - Warsaw 75, Mishawaka 69
GIRLS BASKETBALL - Warsaw leads 5-0
1987 - Warsaw 60, Mishawaka 60
1989 - Warsaw 68, Mishawaka 32
1990 - Warsaw 73, Mishawaka 16
2017 - Warsaw 56, Mishawaka 41
2018 - Warsaw 43, Mishawaka 28