AKRON – For the second year in a row, Tippecanoe Valley has a very up-to-date scouting report on its first-round sectional opponent. The Vikings open Class 3A Sectional 21 action at Wawasee High School Wednesday at 6 p.m. against the host Warriors, the same team Valley beat 58-46 in the regular-season finale Friday in Syracuse. Valley closed the regular season last year with a 30-point win over Wawasee, and then beat the Warriors again by 23 in the sectional opener en route to winning the program’s first championship since 2007. Despite the 12-point win Friday, veteran coach Bill Patrick is playing his usual role and is concerned about having to play Wawasee again. “I don’t think it’s ideal to play them in the last game and then play them the first game of the sectional,” said Patrick. “That’s probably not the way we would have drawn it up. That makes things difficult in the last game (of the regular season). I think that’s something that needs looked at. If we’re gonna stay in this sectional, maybe we can change that game to a different date.” Valley enters sectional play with a 16-3 record, while Wawasee is 4-16. The Vikings have won their last three meetings with the Warriors by an average of 23 points. “That’s a good Wawasee team,” said Patrick. “They’ve got a really good shooter, and they play a really tough schedule. We can’t just show up and expect to win.” In other sectional games at Wawasee, West Noble and Whitko open play Tuesday, while Lakeland and NorthWood square off Wednesday after the Valley/Wawasee game. On Friday, Fairfield plays either West Noble or Whitko, followed by Wednesday’s winners. The sectional championship is scheduled for Saturday night, with the winner advancing to the Blackford Regional to play the winner of the New Haven Sectional. “NorthWood is the clear-cut favorite,” said Patrick. “They can play with anybody in the state. West Noble is a really good ball club. This may be the toughest sectional in the state in terms of the number of good teams there are. There’s some really good teams in 3A that don’t have to come through a sectional as tough as this one. If we’re fortunate enough to get to Friday, we’re gonna have our hands full.” On paper, Valley and NorthWood are heavily favored to advance to the semifinals on Friday. Many believe that could be viewed as the sectional championship game. “To win this sectional you have to beat NorthWood,” said Patrick. “They have experience, size, talent. They have three kids that may be Division I players, and they bring a 6-foot-6 kid off the bench.” NorthWood is 6-0 against the rest of the sectional field this season and 9-0 against Class 3A teams. Fairfield is 4-1 against fellow Sectional 21 teams, while West Noble is 3-2 and Valley is 2-1. No other team has a winning record against the rest of the field. Valley has wins over Whitko and Wawasee. The Vikings lost 58-43 to NorthWood in a holiday tournament. Since that 15-point loss to the Panthers on Jan. 3, Valley has won 12 out of 13 games. The only loss in that span was a two-point loss in overtime to Glenn on Feb. 8. “We’ve really come together as a team, we’re playing a lot better,” said senior Tanner Andrews, the Times-Union Area Player of the Year. “The loss to NorthWood made us work a lot harder and has made us hungry.” Andrews leads Valley with 16 points and six rebounds per game, while Chainey Zolman averages 12 points, Logan Britton and Robby Groom average seven points each and Ben Shriver adds six points per game.
