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.
No Near-Miss This Time as P-W Takes Back Title with Determined Dominance
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
March 6, 2026
MOUNT PLEASANT – After coming oh-so-close the past two years – and finishing second four times over the past six – longtime competitive cheer power Pewamo-Westphalia is back on top.
“The heartbreaking loss last year pushed all of us,” said Ava Simon, one of six seniors on P-W’s 22-girl roster this season. “We just had this fire burning under us ever since we stepped off the mat last year.”
Pewamo-Westphalia scorched the rest of the field at Friday’s Division 4 Finals at Central Michigan University’s McGuirk Arena, posting the best score in all three rounds for a winning 776.34 – nearly 22 points better than runner-up and 2025 champion Hanover-Horton (754.36) – to claim its first title since 2019.
The Pirates were determined to end their recent trend of runner-up finishes, taking a commanding 7.2-point lead after a near-perfect first round, building it up to 17.8 points after Round 2 and then to a final margin of 21.98 points.
P-W coach Staci Myers, a former cheer standout who is now in her 19th year as head coach at her alma mater, said she never considered scaling back her team’s challenging Round 3 routine, even with the big lead.
“Our Round 3 is elite, and we’ve never had one quite like it here at P-W,” said Meyers, who is assisted by Olivia Nurenberg, Amber Martin, Amber Weber and Ramon Beaulieu – all of whom cheered for her at P-W.
“It’s hard and there are some unique things in there, but they step up and perform it flawlessly every time, and they did it again today.”
The Pirates, who have been remarkably consistent all season, posted their season-best score of 780.08 at their District. They were not quite as sharp in winning their Regional at 754.08, but went out with an impressive start-to-finish showing at CMU.
P-W drew plenty of energy from a raucous throng of blue-and-gold-clad fans, who packed their school’s designated section in the middle of the arena and also filled one of the end sections.
The Pirates do not pick captains, but Myers said the team has been led all season by its six seniors – Taryn Schafer, Karsyn Simmon, Karly Bierstetel, Leslie Bernal-Ponce, Brianna Feldpausch and Simon.
“It’s bittersweet right now because us seniors are so close, but we couldn’t have asked for a better ending,” said Bernal-Ponce.
The most drama came with the battle for second place, as Hanover-Horton edged Sanford Meridian (754.12). Hudson, which has won six of the last 10 Division 4 titles, took fourth at 743.32.
Meridian actually posted the second-best scores in Rounds 2 and 3, but still finished 24 hundredths of a point behind Hanover-Horton.
The Comets, who never even had made it to the Finals until 2024 (finishing sixth) before their stunning win last year, took second this time despite losing eight seniors off that championship team. They were hoping to duplicate last year’s accomplishment, when they took second to P-W at Regionals before flipping the script at the Finals, but the Pirates were just too strong.
“We had a little bit of rebuilding to do after last year, no question,” said veteran coach Sarah DuBois, who concluded her fifth year at Hanover-Horton. “But these girls stepped up and did it.”
Pewamo-Westphalia is also a very young team, as 14 of the 22 athletes on the roster were either freshmen or sophomores. The team had only two juniors, with one of them returning all-stater Brynn Feldpausch.
The return of 16 contributors off this championship team bodes well for the future at P-W, which has now won 10 cheer Finals titles.
Legendary coach Sherry Fedewa, who started the program in the 1990s, won six titles while Myers now has won four. The Pirates also have 14 second-place finishes.
“It’s a high bar, that’s for sure,” said Myers, a 2001 P-W graduate. “Our school has had success in a lot of sports and it’s contagious, and everyone wants to experience those feelings.
“We are going to get back to work and try to keep doing it.”