COLUMBIA CITY - After a week of sadness, West Noble High School was able to celebrate Wednesday.
After the deaths of two seniors, Amanda Musser and Brandon Replogle, in unrelated car accidents on Feb. 23, the West Noble student section found reason for exuberance after a 48-47 sectional win over Tippecanoe Valley at Columbia City."This week has been a little bit easier than last week," West Noble coach Ross Hales said. "Obviously, with having seven seniors, that brings a lot of problems, which could be a negative or a positive. For us, it's been a tremendous positive. Losing two classmates, like we did last week, I can't say anything but positive things about how our kids and our school responded in that situation."
And responded West Noble did, setting up a 7:30 p.m. Class 3A Sectional 21 semifinal matchup with NorthWood, a 62-49 winner of Lakeland in Wednesday's early game.
After losing its 4-2 lead, West Noble's next lead wasn't until senior Mitchell Knepper hit his second-straight three-pointer with 16 seconds to play, putting the Chargers in front 48-47.
"We didn't do a good job of getting out and defending," Valley coach Bill Patrick said. "It kind of boils down to not defending. We just didn't get a stop when we needed a stop."
The inability to get out on the outside shooters was no more evident than in the final three minutes, when Valley was in front 45-39.
With things looking bleak, the Chargers scored their next nine points on three-pointers, leading to a 9-2 run in the final stages of the contest.
"With the makeup of our team, we're an inside team," Hales said. "Our strength is getting it down low, but we've always talked about, when the ball's kicked out to you, you have to be able to hit that shot."
Despite the outside shooting, Valley still had a golden opportunity to get the win with a 47-45 lead and the ball with 32 seconds to play. However, with an opportunity to extend the lead to four, Valley missed the front end of a one-on-one opportunity at the free throw line, setting up Knepper's three-pointer.
Following a Valley timeout, the Vikings' last opportunity came when senior Zach Owens penetrated the lane, but went right into 6-foot-7 West Noble junior Dirk Ormsby, who blocked the shot.
"Dirk came in and struggled a little in the first half, but came in when we needed him and did exactly what we asked of him," Hales said.
Ormsby finished the game with eight rebounds and two blocked shots, while the Chargers' biggest inside threat was senior Dakota Kreczmer and his 16 points and eight boards.
The inability to close the game was a common thread for the Vikings, who lost seven of their last eight games, including many in which they held late-game leads.
"It seems like we play not to lose, instead of playing to win," Patrick said. "I don't know if that comes from lack of confidence. When you have two or three of those games you haven't finished the way you should, maybe the pressure just kind of got to us. We just didn't close out some games we should have."
The loss leaves Valley with a 8-13 record, Patrick's second losing season in his 41 years of coaching and his second consecutive.
Over the past two seasons, Valley has gone 12-30, while it took Patrick's previous eight teams, between 2000 and 2007, to rack up 32 losses.
"I didn't think we were going to come back and win 20 ballgames, because we didn't have any size," Patrick said. "Probably the thing that hurt us the most all year was we didn't have that 6-4 kid in the middle that could play defense and stop things. We just struggled defensively in the middle. I thought we'd win 11 or 12 ballgames this year."
Making this year's team's struggles so strange was its core of quality seniors, in Taylor Burkhart, Owens and Anthony Tolson.
Against West Noble, Tolson led the way with 18 points and three steals, while Owens and Burkhart each scored eight points. Burkhart also hauled in eight rebounds and two steals.
