Classes Still Create Hoosier Hysteria
July 27, 2017
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
This is the fourth part in a series on MHSAA tournament classification, past and present, that will be published over the next two weeks. This series originally ran in this spring's edition of MHSAA benchmarks.
Twenty years ago, Bloomington North High School won the Indiana High School Athletic Association boys basketball championship, defeating Delta 75-54 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.
The date, March 22, 1997, is at the same time revered and disdained by traditionalists in the state who saw it as the last schoolboy championship game the state would ever host.
That’s how devout the game of basketball, particularly interscholastic basketball, had become in the Hoosier state during the 87 years a state champion – one state champion, to be precise – was crowned.
Following that 1997 season, the IHSAA moved to a four-class system for its roundball tournaments, like so many of its state association counterparts had done years earlier.
It would be shocking to find more than a small percentage of current high school basketball players around the country unfamiliar with the iconic movie Hoosiers, even though the film is now more than 30 years old.
And, the storyline for that blockbuster unfolded more than 30 years prior to its release, when small-town, undermanned Milan High School defeated Muncie Central High School 32-30 in the 1954 IHSAA title game.
Perhaps it’s because of the David vs Goliath notion, or the fame of the movie that replaced Milan with the fictional Hickory and real-life star Bobby Plump with Hollywood hero Jimmy Chitwood, or the simple fact that Indiana had something other states didn’t.
Whatever the reason, plenty of opposition remains to this day to basketball classification in the state.
The fact is, the small rural schools were regularly being beaten handily by the much larger suburban and city schools as the tournament progressed each season.
Small schools also were closing at a rapid rate following the state’s School Reorganization Act in 1959, as students converged on larger, centralized county schools. From 1960 to 2000, the number of schools entering the tournament dropped from 694 to 381, and in 1997 a total of 382 schools and 4,584 athletes began competition at the Sectional level (the first level of the IHSAA Basketball Tournament).
It was at the entry level of the tournament where school administrators felt the pain of the new class system, but not necessarily for the same nostalgic reasons as the fans who either attended or boycotted the tournament.
At the Sectional round of the tournament, the IHSAA was culling just 2 percent of the revenue, with the participating schools splitting the balance. So, when Sectional attendance dropped by 14 percent in that first year of class basketball, many schools realized a financial loss. It was money they had grown to count on in prior years to help fund various aspects of the department.
Schools cumulatively received more than $900,000 from Sectional competition in 1998, but that total was down from more than $1 million in the last year of the single-class tournament.
Yet, the current format provides a great deal more opportunity and realistic chances at championship runs for schools of all enrollments.
To date, 60 additional teams have championship or runner-up trophies on display in school trophy cases around Indiana.
That was the mission in front of then-IHSAA commissioner Bob Gardner (now National Federation executive director) once the board made its decision: to give thousands more student-athletes the opportunity for once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
As any statistician knows, figures can be manipulated to tell any side of a story. Declining attendance in year one of class basketball is such a number.
The truth is tournament attendance had been on a steady downward spiral since its peak of just over 1.5 million in 1962. By the last single-class event in 1997, the total attendance was half that.
The challenge then and today, as it is for all state associations, is to find that delicate balance for those holding onto tradition, those holding onto trophies, and the number of trophies to hand out.
Editor’s Note: Stories from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in 1998 and from a 2007 issue of Indianapolis Monthly provided facts in this article.
Lowell Follows Lone Senior to Inaugural MHSAA Boys Volleyball Championship
By
Jeff Bleiler
Special for MHSAA.com
June 6, 2026
BATTLE CREEK — Drew Davidson left Kellogg Arena on Saturday with the first Division 2 Finals championship trophy awarded by the MHSAA for boys volleyball – and also with a pocket full of timeouts.
Davidson’s Lowell boys volleyball team defeated Grand Rapids South Christian in the best-of-5 final, 3-1. Despite an up-and-down, back-and-forth match with Lowell prevailing 25-23, 25-20, 23-25 and 25-18, Davidson called no timeouts during the Final.
“I like seeing them get flustered and see how they respond,” Davidson said. “You saw in the third game where we responded poorly and couldn’t side out, and then what happened in the fourth game? We responded and came back out and finished the job off.
“For a young team, it’s not always going to be perfect, but to see how they respond to getting flustered, I like to see that.”
Saturday’s historic championship marked a culmination of more than two years’ work since the May 2024 announcement of the boys volleyball tournament joining the MHSAA postseason schedule.
That fact was not lost on Davidson nor his younger brother Max, the lone senior on a team that had collected three consecutive state volleyball championships (awarded previously by the coaches association) entering Saturday’s Finals.
“It’s the first and the fourth for us,” Drew Davidson said. “It’s Max’s senior year so he’s won every year, so that’s kind of a cool way to send him out. With it being an MHSAA sport now, it’s just makes it even better to bring the first one home and have that on the record books.”
Max Davidson led a team of 11 total — including six freshmen — and turns the setting reins over to freshman Issac Kissinger.
“I don’t have to worry about the program after I leave,” Max Davidson said. “I know Issac can take over. He’s definitely better than when I was a freshman, so I can’t imagine how good he’s going to be as a senior. And all the other freshmen who came in and filled really big roles, they did a really good job.”
They needed to in order to defeat a talented and senior-laden South Christian team for the third time this season. The Sailors had a lead in every set and the first set knotted at 23-23 before Lowell won the last two points.
The second set was back and forth as well, with neither team holding a lead larger than two points until consecutive aces by Lowell junior Lincoln Pollema put the Red Arrows up 19-16. South Christian tied it at 19-19 before Lowell scored six of the next seven points, including the set-winning kill by Kissinger.
The third set featured just about everything from both sides — with South Christian jumping out to a 17-11 lead, a Brock Hoekwater one-armed dig finding the floor on the other side the final point of four straight.
Drew Davidson did not call timeout, and his team responded on Pollema’s serve, scoring eight in a row for a 19-17 lead. With the score tied 23-23, seniors Jack Borisch and Carson Joldersma each had kills to close the set for South Christian.
“We’ve played Lowell three times, but we stood in it with them today, and I thought we played an incredible match,” South Christian coach Mya Udell said. “I just can’t be more proud of the guys, how they worked together and how they’ve come together. They’ve been a huge support for each other, and it’s just been great to be a part of.
“We took a set off Lowell, and they’re an incredible team.”
Lowell jumped out to a 19-11 lead in the fourth set before a South Christian timeout ignited a six-point run that included three straight Joldersma kills — but did not result in a Lowell timeout.
Instead, the Red Arrows took serve on a kill by Kissinger, got two Jaeger Smith kills and with freshman Teylon Compton serving, closed it out with a Kissinger kill and block kill by junior Josh Wolfers.
“That was a crazy game. South Christian brought it,” Drew Davidson said. “They played really well, so that was fun to come against and have to overcome. The boys did eventually.”
The Sailors lose seven seniors from this year’s runner-up squad that finished 28-14-2, and Udell said the group leaves behind a lasting legacy.
“I think for them, their legacy is they can always be known for that first season, making it to a state championship and having a great record,” she said. “But they’re also great men. They love the Lord, they care about others and they’re going to do great in the real world.”
Lowell, which finished the season 27-6, likely will not be a stranger to the MHSAA Finals. Of the 11 players on the roster, four are juniors and six are freshmen — with six additional freshmen on the way.
“We’ve been playing four, five, six freshmen, so it’s super exciting to see those guys grow,” Drew Davidson said. “The opportunity they get to play with the older kids and then what that’ll do for next year, that’s exciting.”
PHOTOS (Top) Lowell players huddle on the court during their Division 2 championship win Saturday at Kellogg Arena. (Middle) The Red Arrows’ Will Selent elevates during a serve.