Saturday will conclude the historic 50th anniversary of the first IHSAA-sanctioned girls’ basketball season. The 1975-76 Warsaw Tigers made history as the first ever IHSAA girls’ basketball state champions in a 57-52 win over Bloomfield. That season was highlighted by the state’s first Indiana Miss Basketball in Claypool native Judy Warren. Not a day or season goes by since that pivotal first season where Judy Warren and the 1976 Warsaw Tigers are not mentioned.
That first team paved the way for sustained success in the basketball-rich Warsaw Community Schools winning 20 NLC titles, 18 sectionals, eight regionals, five state finals berths, and two state championships (last one coming in 1978). 1991 Fairfield grad Lenny Krebs took the Warsaw job in 2017 after spending 14 seasons as Goshen’s head girls’ basketball coach. Krebs’ Warsaw teams have maintained that standard of excellence winning at least 14 games in every year since he took this job.
Past seasons have seen Warsaw finding consistent success in the regular season, particularly in the NLC winning four straight conference titles. However, until this season, their struggles came in sectionals where their previous two seasons ended in close one-possession losses. However, this season has been one that Warsaw fans will never forget going 26-1 entering Saturday’s contest with a very tough and talented Lawrence North squad that can ball with the best.
This Warsaw team has a plethora of talent beginning with the future Ball State Cardinal Brooke Winchester who has recorded 19 double doubles in each of her last two seasons as the rock of Warsaw’s defense and a jolt of energy. She is one of three 1,000-point scorers on this Warsaw team. Juniors Joslyn Bricker and Brooke Zartman are having career seasons as highly talented combo guards that can shoot the basketball.
Zartman is a future Miami Redhawk, while Bricker is garnering a ton of interest from division 1 programs waiting to find out where her collegiate basketball journey will take her. To put into perspective, both of these players have showcased their moments of greatness in this tournament. Bricker was just three points shy of the school’s single-game scoring record as she had 34 points on 15-19 shooting in the 71-54 sectional championship win over Northridge. In the Semi-State championship game, Bricker battled through foul trouble as she had 18 points in 23 minutes of action in the 67-61 win over Hamilton Southeastern. Leading the way in that game was the sharpshooting Zartman who had 25 points to help Warsaw reach Gainbridge FIeldhouse.
Warsaw’s success maybe contributed to a talented trio of superstars, but their road to State would not have been possible without the intangible players that do not receive nearly as much attention as they deserve. Junior Alexis Neely has been the glue of this team leading Warsaw in assists and quietly averaging 9.6 points per game, which forces teams to respect Neely’s presence. Besides Zartman’s 46% 3-point shooting, Abbey Peterson is shooting 44% from downtown. Warsaw’s explosive 41% from distance and 51% from the floor makes even the stingiest of defenses to struggle against this team.
Lawrence North, however, will be up for the task at hand against Warsaw as they already took down the defending state champions in Lawrence Central. The record does not come close to describing just how difficult and talented this Wildcats squad is under Coach Stephen Thomas. We have a dandy of a matchup in the 8:15pm 4A championship game to cap off the season.
It is a fitting moment that the final game of Saturday’s slate of state championship games will feature the Warsaw Tigers, a program with rich history of hoops and the one that won the very first one 50 years ago. Now 50 years later, they are back on the big stage, one win away from championship glory.