The last out landed in a glove at Victory Field on Saturday night, and Lake Central had done something that only Penn in 2023 and New Palestine in 2004 had ever done in Indiana high school athletics — won both the softball and baseball state championships in the same academic year.
Two trophies. One school year. Three programs in Indiana history.
It started the Friday before at Bittinger Stadium in West Lafayette, where the Lake Central softball program had spent 22 years waiting for a moment like this. Senior MaKayla Van Vossen, a DePaul commit, crushed a leadoff solo home run in the bottom of the first inning to set the tone. Junior Emma Wilkins, a St. Ambrose commit, followed with a grand slam in the third. Lake Central beat Terre Haute North Vigo 9-2 — the program’s first softball state championship since 2004, ending one of the longer title droughts for a program that had reached the state finals four times since without winning.
A week later, the baseball team finished the story.
Owen Kopercinski, a sophomore lefthander, took the mound at Victory Field and never gave Bloomington South a chance. Lake Central won 4-0 behind a complete game shutout from Kopercinski — the kind of performance that emerges from a tournament run that went through ranked programs from start to finish. The Indians entered unranked in the coaches poll but defeated three ranked teams on their postseason path, including a win over No. 5 Munster in the sectional opener.
The Bloomington South story deserves its own paragraph. The Panthers finished 25-7 and made the deepest run in program history — no Bloomington South baseball team had reached the state final since the 1972 state champions. Coach Phil Kluesner built something in Bloomington that the community hadn’t seen in over half a century. Senior Blake Azcui won the Bob Gardner Mental Attitude Award — a three-sport athlete who carried a 4.34 GPA and will attend the University of Cincinnati on his own terms this fall. A 4-0 loss in a state final doesn’t diminish what that program accomplished in June.
But the night belonged to Lake Central. And the week — and the year — belonged to Lake Central.
Penn did it in 2023. New Palestine did it in 2004. Now the Indians from St. John have joined them in one of the rarest chapters in Indiana prep sports history. A school that produces both a softball and baseball state champion in the same academic year is doing something that almost never happens — and when it does, it says something about a program, a community, and a standard that runs deeper than a single sport.
Lake Central set that standard this year across both diamonds.
Two sports. Two trophies. One school. Three times in Indiana history.
Indiana Preps covers high school athletics across the state of Indiana.