SYRACUSE – The Tippecanoe Valley Vikings got a needed boost from an unlikely source to win Saturday’s Class 3A Sectional 21 championship. With Valley trailing the NorthWood Panthers 13-2 with 1:30 remaining in the first quarter, sophomore reserve Chainey Zolman sank a three-pointer that ignited a 10-0 run. The run seemed to loosen the Vikings (20-3) up enough to take down the Panthers (16-7) by a 60-51 count at Wawasee High School. “He’s capable and we’ve told him earlier that in order for us to win, we needed him to get 10 rebounds and score 10 points,” Valley coach Bill Patrick said of the 6-foot-5 Zolman. “All year, he’s a been a kid we’ve been waiting on. At the beginning of the year, we thought he was a guy that needed to step up, because he can shoot the ball.” Step up he did. Netting a career-high 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting, Zolman made all four of his three-point field goals, including one with two seconds remaining in the half that gave the Vikings their first lead at 24-22. “It was definitely with me,” Zolman said about his shooting stroke. “Every shot I put up, it just felt good.” Zolman’s previous high in a game was 14, but in the biggest game of his life, he topped it. “The coach talked to me a lot before the game about what he wanted me to do, so I just tried to do what he said,” Zolman said. “It worked out for me.” And what worked out for him, worked out for the Vikings, who advanced to the Blackford Regional with the win. At Blackford, Valley will face Norwell Saturday at noon. With a win over Norwell (17-6), Valley would advance to that night’s regional championship against the winner the 10 a.m. game between Fort Wayne Concordia (19-4) and either Muncie Central and Hamilton Heights, who play tonight for the Sectional 24 championship. “There are good teams at the regional,” Patrick said. “Really good teams at the regional. Norwell is a good ballclub.” Against NorthWood, Valley showed it was pretty good too. “We were outplayed tonight,” NorthWood coach Aaron Wolfe said. “Tippy Valley’s a really good team. There’s a reason they’ve won 20 games. I wish we would have played better, but I thought they got a great lift from Chainey Zolman.” Along with Zolman’s production, junior Tanner Andrews had 12 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and two blocks, while senior Nick Kindig posted a team-high 20 points. As a freshman, Kindig was part of a Valley team that went 8-13 and ended the season on a six-game losing streak. Despite those woes, even he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, which resulted in this season’s success. “My freshman year, I was just worried about getting better, because I knew we weren’t going to be that good,” he said. “Hopefully, in a few years, I’d have a few guys that could help me. I was hoping we could get a sectional and hopefully go even farther.” He got those guys, and now Valley’s back on top. “I knew through middle school, we had a good record, Tanner’s grade was really good and Chainey’s was just really good,” Kindig said. “So I knew in high school, if we didn’t win a sectional, it’d be disappointing.” Prior to Valley’s 2008-09 season, Patrick had coached 34 seasons without a losing record, but went 4-17 that year. Following a three-year stretch of going 19-34, Patrick’s Vikings have gone 36-8 the past two seasons, culminating in the team’s first sectional title since 2007. “It’s kinda nice to be back on top again,” Patrick said. With his latest win, Patrick now has a career total of 713 wins, one shy of fourth on Indiana’s all-time list, trailing Bill Stearman’s 714. The sectional title is Patrick’s 15th, 10 of which came at Whitko, but he was happier to see his players experience their first. “This is what you work for all year – to win a sectional,” he said. “Kindig is a senior, and we haven’t won one in over four years, so we talked earlier about not wanting this to be the second group that didn’t graduate without winning a sectional.” Mentioning that winning the sectional was the team’s second goal behind claiming the Three Rivers Conference crown, Kindig is hoping to win a couple more trophies before his prep career ends. “Hopefully it doesn’t end next weekend,” he said. “Let’s go down there and get two more.” Patrick has three regional titles under his belt, but Saturday night, he was just soaking in getting his team another sectional title. “It doesn’t matter how many you win – it's always good,” he said. “This group deserves it. They work hard. They had a couple problems in the year, but bounced back.” And he can thank a player who averaged 4.5 points per game during the season for propelling his team to the next level of the IHSAA tournament. “We just thought at any time he was going to break loose,” Patrick said about Zolman. “He’s 6-5, long and lanky and he can shoot the basketball. It was just a matter of time. He’s going to be a good basketball player the next couple of years.”
