the undercard

I compared last week's Marion-New Castle Regional matchup to an old fashioned title fight. Little did I know that a week later we would be traveling to Seymour for another heavyweight hard court battle between two of the best 4A teams in the state, Warren Central & New Albany.  Once the tourney schedule was released it seems that everyone in southern Indiana penciled in this Semi-State on their calendars and the 3rd largest high school gym in the nation was filled to the rafters.  But, if you looked carefully you could see that not all had come to see the Romeo Langford farewell tour as nearly half the crowd had travelled from the small towns of Morristown and Montgomery to cheer on the pride of their 1A communities, the Barr-Reeve Vikings & the Morristown Yellow Jackets.  Although the obvious undercard on this day, the game was anything but a warm-up for the main event.  These were two well coached, well prepared basketball teams with a history of hoop's success and for 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon they commanded the floor and the crowd's attention.  The Morristown 77, Barr-Reeve 70 final score doesn't really represent how close this game was until the very end.  And now, next up for the Yellow Jackets - a trip to Indianapolis and a chance for a state championship that eluded them in 1911, when they were one of twelve teams to participate in the very first Indiana state basketball tournament.  © Chris Smith