Glenn’s run to another sectional crown surprises most, but shouldn’t
On Saturday the John Glenn Falcons will play for their second straight Regional championship.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
You see head coach Travis Hannah’s team had an uncharacteristic sub-.500 regular season. In fact, the Falcons, who lost all-everything Brycen Hannah, perhaps Glenn’s greatest player ever, due to graduation after last season’s run to the Semi-State, started the season a dismal 1-5.
However, something clicked over Christmas Break. As a result, Hannah as he so often has done during his 17 seasons in Walkerton, got this team to believe in itself.
From Dec. 27 thru Jan. 26 Glenn didn’t lose a game. It reeled off seven straight Ws, including yet another Bi-County title.
But the wheels came off after that winning streak.
The Falcons lost seven of their next eight and limped into the postseason with a 10-13 record.
Had the players packed it in and were the baseball standouts looking forward to spring and their final season on the high school diamond?
Even Hannah questioned his team and whether it had the tenacity to win a game in the Sectional, let alone three in a row.
Credit the Falcons, though, they responded in a big way. They beat Culver Academies by six, Bremen by seven, a team they had lost to two weeks prior by double digits, and then stunned a lot of people by knocking off heavy favorite Tippecanoe Valley on its home floor. Like the Lions, the Vikings had beaten Glenn earlier in the season.
As the partisan Valley crowd filled out of their gym on Saturday night and the Falcons celebrated the school’s first ever back-to-back sectional crowns and cut down the nets, I thought to myself, ‘Should what Glenn just accomplished be that much of a surprise?”
Honestly? No, not at all.
You see the Falcons are different. They have a certain moxie about them. Their senior class of Chase Miller, Joe Chrapliwy, Joey Shoue and Carson Krueger are winners. When the lights are the brightest that’s when that group shines even brighter.
This senior class will go down as one of the most successful in Glenn basketball lore. Heck, it may be regarded as THE most successful.
It has won 74 games and is 9-3 in the postseason with a pair of Sectional championships and a Regional title, too. In case you’re wondering, those three postseason losses have been by a combined 10 points.
Now, the 13-13 Falcons face another daunting challenge. They will have to get by South Bend St. Joseph if they want to play in another Semi-State.
The newly-named Huskies (formerly the Indians) are rolling. Winners of 11 of their last 13 contests, St. Joe was ranked No. 13 in Class 3A in the final Associated Press’ poll of the season. To make the challenge even greater, this is a team that beat Glenn by 33 points just over a month ago, but believe it or not that game was close going into the final eight minutes before things got out of hand.
Can the Falcons pull off another upset this postseason? Absolutely. Many of us are fully aware of what happens this time of year. After all, they call it Hoosier Hysteria for a reason. Season after season we constantly see upsets in the IHSAA state tournament. The single-elimination format is what makes this event great and why books and movies have been written and produced.
To have another shining moment if you will, Glenn will need its senior class to shine.
And we will see if the Class of ‘24 is up to adding yet another chapter to what has already been a stellar high school career.
One thing is certain, I wouldn’t bet against this group of Falcons that’s for sure.
Special thanks to Plumlee Dentistry in Plymouth for helping us bring you Indiana High School Athletics like no one else and for being the proud sponsor of the Plumlee Radio Booth, our on-location broadcast site at games. Please give their website a visit by going to https://plumleedentistry.com/
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