SYRACUSE – The Wawasee High School boys basketball team has had a familiar foe in the first round of the sectional on five occasions in the past seven years, but that trend is finally broken.
The Warriors have played Tippecanoe Valley to begin postseason play in all but two years since 2011, but will open tournament play this season against Lakeland.
The two teams will collide on Tuesday to open up Class 3A Sectional 21 held at NorthWood. They last played each other on Jan. 27, with Lakeland winning 54-30 in Syracuse.
“It’ll be a brand new game,” said Wawasee coach Jon Everingham. “We know their players very well and know what they do, but a lot of things change during the course of a season.”
Since that matchup, Wawasee has played four schools that are in Class 4A and defeated one of them, Lakeland has only played two of that nature in that span, but won both.
“We’re playing our best basketball of the season right now and we’re going to give it our best shot,” Everingham said. “Lakeland is a very good team and they have a high-powered offense.”
The Lakers have three players averaging over 10 points a game, while the Warriors have none. Those players on Lakeland will be a major focus of the Wawasee defensive scheme. The team will have to stop senior Camron Bontrager, who is scoring just under 20 points a game.
Senior Trevon Coleman leads all Wawasee scorers with 8.8 points a game and classmate Jacob Hand is second on the team with 7.1. Hand grabs 4.6 rebounds per game and makes 46 percent of his field goal attempts. As a unit, Wawasee is scoring a shade over 36 points a game and making 40 percent of its shots.
While the Warriors may not have a player that can take over a game, they will rely on a team effort to capture the victory.
“We’re asking all players to improve a little bit,” said Everingham. “When we’ve tried to rely on one guy, we haven’t been very good.”
Keeping it close in the first three quarters of the contest is Everingham’s game plan.
“We have to make the game very competitive and enter the fourth quarter with a chance to win,” he said. “If we can put a little pressure on them in the fourth quarter, that would be to our advantage.”
The Warriors won their opening game last year in the postseason, while Lakeland has not won a sectional contest since 2011. The winner of this matchup will play West Noble in the semifinals on Friday. NorthWood and Fairfield play in the nightcap on Tuesday and the winner plays Tippecanoe Valley on Friday in the semifinal. The championship is on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Wawasee hasn’t won in the Panther Pit since 2006 when they won the sectional title. The team is hoping end that drought.
“We’ve been in some pretty tough environments as a team,” Everingham said. “Outside of our home floor, where we play doesn’t really matter to us.”
Trailing back to 2010, the Warriors defeated West Noble to win the program’s last sectional title. The team is trying not to think of that statistic to maintain from adding pressure to the situation.
“We know people in this town and school district that care about basketball and want to see us get it done,” he said. “We feel we have a competitive chance to do that and I don’t think we’re completely outmatched by any team in our sectional and are taking it one game at a time.”
Wawasee and Lakeland will tipoff at 6 p.m. in the first game of the doubleheader.
