Evan Lepak: Reflecting on a wild year in area sports

Jun. 21—What a whirlwind the past 10 months have been, huh?

As I sit here regaining my breath — and my sanity — I'm proud of the work we've done here at The Goshen News during what was a wild fall, winter and spring here in Michiana.

REMEMBERING THE FALL

Across all three seasons, maybe the most eye-opening experiences came during the fall campaign.

Girls golf saw NorthWood and head coach Adam Yoder make yet another state run behind a core of experienced players — most notably senior Cybil Stillson.

Stillson — a Butler University signee — helped lead the Panthers to a 13th place finish at state as a team, shooting a 76 and becoming an all-state selection in the process. Her ridiculously good round in the regional at Noble Hawk in Kendallville was one of the most impressive performances of the year, as she shot an IHSAA-record 62.

Cross country held an exciting campaign as Goshen and Northridge made a name for themselves last fall.

The RedHawks boys team and both Northridge squads made it state behind competitors who were always competing for an individual victory.

Goshen seniors Drew Hogan and Cole Johnston impressed every meet and Northridge's Jack Moore was almost always at the very front of the pack.

The Raiders took home an eighth-place finish as a team with Moore finishing eighth overall, while the RedHawks finished in 10th with Hogan coming in 12th overall, while Johnston finished in 18th.

On the pitch this fall, some of the area's best soccer came out of Emma at Westview High School.

The Warriors had two stellar programs compete this past year with both the boys and girls making deep postseason runs to compliment superb regular seasons.

The girls team took the Northeast Corner Conference in stride, winning the conference behind a 15-3-4 overall record. Under first-year head coach Jesse Ward, the Warriors earned their first sectional championship since 2017. They'd advance to the regional finals against Andrean at home, falling just a goal short of semistate.

Perhaps the most impressive chain of events came from the Warrior boys in the postseason on the pitch.

The head coach Jamie Martin-led team went 11-5 in the regular season, but lost its final two regular season games by a combined score of 8-0.

The odds of an extended postseason appearance didn't look promising, but the Warriors fought through the adversity of multiple late deficits to eventually take down Providence, 4-2 in overtime, to earn the Class 1A boys soccer state title.

Around the same time Westview's boys soccer team was hoisting some hardware, another area program was about to embark on its own unlikely playoff run on the gridiron.

The Northridge football team faced a slew of injuries — including to starting quarterback Micah Hochstetler midway through the season — and went from 4-0 to 5-4 to finish the regular season.

Question marks at the quarterback position led to a frustrating second half of the regular season for the Raiders, but in the postseason everything changed once running back Tagg Gott was converted to a dual-threat QB a week before the playoffs.

Eppley and his staff pushed the right buttons at the right time as the offense would be rejuvenated by Gott's play-making ability under center.

While Northridge would be outmatched against Mount Vernon at Lucas Oil Stadium, the run the Raiders had will be forever remembered by the folks in Middlebury.

In addition to all of the crazy local sports that occurred in the fall, covering the Notre Dame football team was a heck of an experience.

The Irish went 11-1, earning a trip to the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona on New Year's Day.

Without long-time head coach Brian Kelly — who took off like a thief in the night for Louisiana State in December — Notre Dame fell late to Oklahoma State to finish the season 11-2.

With Marcus Freeman at the helm now, the program looks to be in good hands. His first test in 2022 won't be an easy though, with the Irish embarking into Columbus to face the Ohio State Buckeyes in early September.

It may be asking a lot, but a victory over the Buckeyes would go a long way in cementing the country's belief in Freeman as head coach.

REMEMBERING THE WINTER

The state's crown jewel took centerstage this winter, with both boys and girls basketball seeing teams go very deep into the playoffs.

Outside of Eppley's coaching job with Northridge, arguably the best coaching came from Fairfield girls basketball head coach Brodie Garber.

The Falcons lost senior point guard Brooke Sanchez to a torn ACL in early January, and with a short bench at his disposal, Garber and his team looked destined for an early exit in sectional play.

Instead, The Falcons rallied together and used the likes of Brea Garber, Bailey Willard, Morgan Gawthrop and others to play a suffocating brand of defense along with patient play offensively to march their way to a 2A semistate appearance.

On the boys side, NorthWood was projected to be not only the best team in the area, but one of the best teams in the state. Led by head coach Aaron Wolfe, the Panthers lived up to their lofty expectations behind an eight-man rotation led by players like Cade Brenner, Ian Raasch and Cooper Wiens.

NorthWood earned an NLC title during a 22-2 regular season before winning a sectional championship over Wawasee on the Warriors' home court.

The postseason had a disappointed end for NorthWood with a regional final loss to Leo, but I'd expect the Panthers to be contenders once again with everyone returning except for Wiens and Chaz Yoder.

Other winter bright spots occurred over in the pool with the girls swim teams from Concord and Northridge.

The Minutemen won NLC and sectional titles behind a number of talented swimmers in Grace Brenneman, Kiran Stauffer, Bella Sponseller plus the Lantz sisters in Audrey and Ella. Head coach Tom Johnson's group finished in fourth place at state, which was the highest in school history.

The Raiders had their moments in the pool as well, but the biggest performances came from those in the diving well. Both Jiselle Miller and Kaitlin Simons were exceptional, separating themselves as two of the best divers in the state all season.

Simons finished third at the state meet, while Miller finished her high school diving career in second.

The dynamic duo of Northridge had been a mainstay all four years on the varsity program for the Raiders, and their pure dominance of the sport will be something we may not see again in the area for quite some time.

REMEMBERING THE SPRING

This one's pretty fresh.

And like the other seasons, the spring season had some very memorable moments as well.

In baseball, Goshen made a huge statement by turning around a 1-5 start to eventually earn a share of the NLC title with Northridge for the first time since 1998. The job Goshen head coach JJ DuBois did to put his kids in a position to earn such an accomplishment was one of my favorite things to see transpire over the spring.

Elsewhere on the diamond, both Fairfield and Wawasee picked up sectional titles.

The Falcons earned a sectional title — beating Westview on Memorial Day — for the first time in over a decade behind a strong lineup of hitters and the arm of southpaw Alec Hershberger on the mound.

Fairfield accomplished the success it did with heavy hearts following the tragic passing of junior varsity player Kadin Schrock.

The team rallied together, played for Kadin and won for Kadin.

The response from both the community and the team was truly inspiring, and the support everyone shared for one another during that time will live on in my memory for quite some time.

One class above the Falcons, Wawasee made some history of its own, winning its second sectional in a row after going nearly 25 years without one. Credit goes to first-year head coach Joe Salazar who continued to help his team believe, despite multiple one-run losses during the regular season. His team won six in a row heading into regional play before it ran into a buzz saw in the regional semifinal against New Castle.

Elsewhere in spring sports, our softball teams were very good with five teams in Concord, Fairfield, Goshen, Northridge and Westview all having records above .500.

Both Northridge and Westview won sectional championships, with the Warriors earning their first sectional title in program history.

The Warriors had to win two sectional games on the same day to advance. And it took a performance that truly wowed me from Alexys Antal to get there.

Antal helped the Warriors take down both Fairfield and Bremen in extra innings, pitching 20 innings, throwing close to 300 pitches, allowing just one earned run and throwing a whopping 40 strikeouts.

Westview would give eventual 2A state champion Eastside everything it had in the regional final in Butler, but the Blazers would win 1-0 to end the Warriors magical run.

In girls tennis this spring, Fairfield was on top in our area.

Head coach Michael Filbrun's team consisted of several experienced returners, including No. 1 singles player Addison Mast.

The Falcons went 16-2 overall, earning NLC, sectional and regional titles in the process. They'd come up just short at semistate, falling to Delta by a match.

Last but not least, let's give a shoutout to a couple golfers who made the state finals this past week.

Fairfield freshman Brayden Miller burst onto the scene this season and quickly proved his early season success wasn't a fluke. After the Falcons got out of the sectional as a team, Miller shot a 71 at Swan Lake Golf Club in Plymouth to earn himself a spot as an individual at state.

Miller then finished tied for 12th out of around 100 golfers in the finals. He'll be a force in this area over the next few years over in Benton.

Northridge's Brock Reschly also made it state as an individual for the second year in a row after shooting a strong 73 at regionals.

Reschly then improved drastically over his score in 2021 at state, finishing over 30 spots higher — 29th overall — after shooting a combined 155 (+11) over both days of competition.

Whew. That was a lot, and I certainly didn't get to everything, but the jest of all of this is that it was one heck of a rollercoaster ride this past year.

I'm excited to see what this next year will have in store when it all starts up again less than two months from now.

Evan Lepak can be reached at evan.lepak@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 240326. Follow him on Twitter @EvanMPLepak.