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.
Unbeatable Goalie, Unrelenting Effort Earn Dow Memorable 1st Title
March 12, 2022
PLYMOUTH — When Collin Lemanski plays the way he did on the biggest of stages, his hockey coach is well within his rights to promote him to the fullest.
While identifying his players in a postgame press conference, Midland Dow coach Dick Blasy introduced the player seated to his left in full goaltending equipment as “best goalie in the state, Collin Lemanski.”
Care to elaborate?
“You can’t do this without goaltending,” Blasy said after Dow won its first MHSAA hockey championship with a 2-0 victory over Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in the Division 3 Final on Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.
“How many shots did they have today? 32? How many goals did they get? I think that speaks for itself. Orchard Lake St. Mary’s brought it. I don’t think it takes a rocket hockey fan to know they took it to us more than we took it to them.”
It was the seventh shutout of the season for Lemanski, who finished with an 18-3-3 record, a 1.29 goals against average and a .950 save percentage.
“I think it’s less about the shutout and more about the team just winning it, our first win,” Lemanski said. “It was great.”
Lemanski said he didn’t treat the championship game any differently than another game, going through his usual pregame routine.
One of the staples of his pregame ritual is this: “Just don’t talk to me,” he said.
With Lemanski putting up an impenetrable barrier in front of the Dow net, the Chargers hung around throughout the game until they got the break they needed.
Caden Chritz, who was robbed earlier in the period, broke to the net and took a shot that was stopped by Eaglets goalie Aidan Klingbeil. Nolan Sanders pounced on the rebound to score with 2:29 left in the third period.
“We knew we were gonna get our chances,” Sanders said. “They had their chances. My line took it into the zone, put it on net, got it in front and just tapped it home.”
With so little time on the clock, the Chargers couldn’t get caught up in thinking they had just won the championship.
“We’ve got to keep our composure, got to stay simple until the final buzzer,” Sanders said. “Just let things roll out.”
Dow couldn’t breathe easily until Ryan Pomranky banked a pool shot from his own end off the left boards and into an empty net with 17.7 seconds remaining.
Dow is the first of Midland’s two hockey teams to win an MHSAA championship. Midland High was a runner-up in 1994, 2008 and 2010. Dow reached the Semifinals three times without getting to the championship game, including in 2020 when MHSAA tournaments were shut down because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“It just doesn’t seem real, to be honest with you,” Blasy said. “I checked the scoreboard about 50 times; it’s still there. It’s still 2-0. It’s unbelievable, but it’s always about the boys. That’s all I really truly care about is the fact that they did this. Whether we won or we lost, it doesn’t really change things. I would’ve been just as proud of these boys if we would’ve come out on the other end, because they just worked so hard.”
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s reached the championship game by running a gauntlet that included defeating 2021 Division 3 champion Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood in the Regional Final and second-ranked Warren De La Salle Collegiate in overtime in Friday’s Semifinal.
The Eaglets were playing in Division 3 for the first time since winning that division in 2005. They reached three Division 1 Finals, winning two, before choosing to make the switch.
“We made the decision to change, just because we felt that Division 3 was probably the strongest route,” St. Mary’s coach Brian Klanow said. “Certainly, we’re not a team that runs away or hides from competition; we encourage it. It just makes us better for this time of year. Division 3 this year, we think it’s the deepest division.”
PHOTOS (Top) Midland Dow’s Nolan Sanders celebrates after sending a rebound into the net for what would be the game-winning goal of the Division 3 Final. (Middle) Sanders’ chip in made it just over an outstretched goalie’s glove. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)