I do not have to explain to you that Warsaw has a long history of success in athletics.
Way before I had put the headsets on for the first time at WRSW in 1991 did I understand the significance of broadcasting Tigers sports on the radio.
I know the names of those who had gone before me in the broadcast booth, and I am reminded of them often.
But one of the most humbling parts of what I do for Tiger sports is to be the school’s athletic historian. I used to serve in that role for only the three major sports—football, girls basketball and boys basketball—but now I am trying to do that all of the teams in all three seasons.
It’s my duty to make sure the past is not forgotten.
So, during a school year like the one Warsaw is having this year, I have been asked a hundred times “is this the best sports year in the history of Warsaw Community High School?”
Sometimes a ‘recency bias’ forces us to rush to a judgement on such things. Our memories fail us, and we let the latest great player or team take a higher place in history than what they deserve.
But, now that a few days have passed since the end of the boys basketball season, I think there is no other possible answer but “Yes…yes, this is the greatest school year in Warsaw athletics history.”
It started in the fall with football.
For as long as football has been a class sport in Indiana, Warsaw has been in the class with the largest schools in the state.
But in the fall of 2024 the IHSAA shrunk 6A, which shifted Warsaw to 5A.
After a 3-3 start, Warsaw won their last three games of the regular season.
They started the playoffs with a home win over Goshen, whom they had beaten badly already in the regular season.
Then they began the most impressive 15 days of football in the history of Warsaw Tiger football.
They went to Concord, who beat them early in Week 4, and scored a last-second touchdown to beat the top-rated Minutemen for the school’s second sectional championship.
The following Friday #2 Lafayette Jeff came to jam packed Fisher Field, and the Tigers ran them off the field with their patented “flexbone offense” by a score of 44-27.
Uncharted territory was all that was ahead.
Having beaten #1 and #2 already, all that stood between them and a trip to the state finals was #3 Merrillville in the semi-state. The Pirates, coached by Tiger legend Brad Seiss, came to Fisher Field and played in front of what had to be a record crowd and ran into a team of destiny.
Warsaw was headed to the state football finals.
By the time the 5A final kicked off at Lucas Oil Stadium on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, the Warsaw girls basketball team had already played eight games, and they’d won all eight.
They just kept winning, and winning, and winning. The wins piled up until they got to 18.
They suffered their only regular season loss at Homestead, and then plowed through everyone else on their schedule.
They won the sectional by vanquishing their old rival #11 Northridge in the Tiger Den.
They went to LaPorte and beat #4 South Bend Washington by 10 in the regional.
They were sent to Frankfort for the semi-state, and jumped out to a 19-0 lead in the afternoon game before cruising to an easy win over McCutcheon.
In the championship, they beat the previously unbeaten and believed-to-be-unbeatable #1 Hamilton Southeastern Royals to earn their own trip to the state championship, which would be a celebration of the 50th girls state basketball championship…the first won by Warsaw in 1976.
That state championship game on the first Saturday in March was three days before the boys basketball sectional started at North Side Gym in Elkhart.
The Tigers pulled away in the second half of a 44-30 win over Concord, then disposed of Goshen for a second time to face Northridge in the final.
They had played the Raiders in January and rallied from down 7 with 2:50 to play with a 14-2 run that was a huge step toward winning the NLC championship.
In the sectional, the Tigers were down six in the final minute, and 3-pointers by Robbie Finlinson and Parker Justice in the final seconds of regulation put the game in overtime, and the Tigers won the sectional in extra time.
When the buzzer at the end of overtime sounded and the celebration erupted, history was made. Never had Warsaw won the sectional in football, girls basketball and boys basketball in the same school year—until this one.
And with the boys’ win, Tiger teams have won 10 sectionals this school year. 10!
And we still have the spring season to play.
So, “yes…this is the best school year, athletically, in school history.”
And it’s not over yet.