Andy Amey: Thunderbirds, Miners ready for semistate games

Feb. 15—Joey Davidson and Jared Rehmel have been on parallel high school girls basketball coaching tracks since October of 2017.

That's when their respective teams, North Central and Linton, began their journeys from bottom feeders to perennial contenders in the SouthWestern Indiana Athletic Conference thanks to some incoming freshmen.

Joey's Thunderbirds went from a 4-21 team in 2016-17 to 15-10 the following season and haven't had a losing season since. Jared's Miners improved from 7-17 to 20-4 and have also been winners ever since, at least 19 victories in every season but one and, of course, back-to-back state championships in 2020 and 2021.

And this week Joey was probably speaking for both of them when he said, regarding Saturday's semistates, "We're 100% going there to win it . . . it's too far away otherwise."

North Central plays Wood Memorial at noon Saturday in the second semifinal game of the Class A semistate at New Albany. Linton plays at 10 a.m. at Shelbyville against Brownstown Central in Class 2A's southern semistate.

Neither team is favored to win its semistate, and indeed the state-championship favorites in both classes are in the other semifinal games at both Shelbyville and New Albany.

But the most heavily favored state contender is the one in Class A — top-ranked Lanesville, which plays Jac-Cen-Del in Saturday's 10 a.m. opener. But Davidson has a long list, starting with "up by 11 with 3:12 left in the third quarter" and concluding with "we lost at the buzzer . . . yeah, I've thought about that game a lot," concerning the Thunderbirds' first look at Lanesville, in a tournament back on Nov. 11. It was the Eagle's closest thing to a loss other than their setback against Class 3A power Evansville Memorial.

No, North Central isn't scared of its first girls semistate appearance in school history.

"It's a really good feeling," said junior point guard Jalyn Davidson, "not only for us but for our school. We're trying to keep working hard so we can keep going."

Jalyn is one of three juniors who have started probably every game since their first one three years ago. She recently became North Central's career assist leader (as a junior, remember) in addition to being the team's leading scorer.

Heredity is wonderful.

"My mom was also a pretty good assist-giver," she said this week. "I think she might still have the record at Sullivan." The former Angel Lamb is indeed the single-game, season and career assist leader for the Golden Arrows, while Joey Davidson holds all three Sullivan records for steals and has the single-game and season scoring records.

Another of the juniors, Shelby Seay, might be headed for a rebound record or two and why not? She admits to being 5-foot-6 ("or maybe 5-5"), after all.

"A bulldog" is how her coach describes Seay, who admitted this week "it's a little different [to still be playing] . . . we're excited to play.

"We have to play good defense," Seay continued, "and this week instead of locking one girl down [the strategy in the regional win over Bethesda Christian] we have to lock everybody down."

If Wood Memorial, or either of the other two schools, did have just one girl to lock down, that would probably be Sam Secrest's job.

"Defense and rebounding," are the main jobs for the third of the juniors, she said. "We're really excited."

Treating Saturday's games as nothing more than games will be important, Secrest added. "We're just gonna have to play normal," she said. "Not get overwhelmed."

"Nothing is easy at this point," Joey Davidson said, "but I feel like we're battle-tested and ready.

"We've got to do the things you do to win postseason games: play defense, rebound and make free throws," he added. "And, like coach [Jeff] Moore [Davidson's coach at Sullivan] always says, you've still got to make shots."

The Class 2A semistate at Shelbyville includes third-ranked Eastern Hancock meeting Sheridan in the second game. Eastern Hancock is considered the state-finals favorite.

But two of the Miner leaders have state-finals experience, let along semistate memories — and the reason Eastern Hancock is considered the favorite is that Linton emerged from the sectional that included both the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the state, beating top-ranked North Knox for the sectional title two weeks ago.

The Miners won't be scared either, in other words.

"We're all really excited," said senior Bradie Chambers, who scored 32 of her team's 43 points in the North Knox win. "We've worked really hard and we want to take advantage of the opportunity."

"We've obviously super excited," agreed senior Sydney Jerrells, the team's point guard and its other main scoring threat. "Not a lot of teams are doing this, and right now we're lucky to be one of those."

Being an underdog is something the Miners enjoy, they said.

"I think people are overlooking us a little bit," Chambers said, "probably because we don't score a lot of points. We kind of attack with our defense."

"A lot of people don't like Linton, and that gives us an edge," added Jerrells.

Brownstown was actually Linton's opponent in the preseason scrimmage this fall.

"They have a lot of shooters, kind of a scrappy team," Jerrells recalled. "The team has to stay focused and have fun with it all — and execute our game plan."

"Brownstown is really well coached, very fundamentally sound," said Rehmel. "They have three or four girls who are athletic and long who crash the boards really well, and they have six or seven girls who can shoot 3s.

"We have an opportunity; everybody still playing has an opportunity," the coach added. "At the end of the day, we have to be who we are, and bring the defense we've had most of the year . . . we're glad to be there, but we're not satisfied."

"I'm confident," Chambers concluded. "I think that we're underdogs, so we don't have any pressure."

In other games this weekend, the non-tournament Game of the Week is Saturday night's Terre Haute North game against Evansville Harrison as the Patriots look for 17 wins in a row.

Sullivan can wrap up the Western Indiana Conference championship with a pair of wins, and Linton can complete a sweep of the SWIAC. Also looking to finish a conference race undefeated is Lawrenceville and coach Randy Bishop (we remember him for a lot of reasons).

Have fun watching whatever game you choose, and remember that the boys sectional draw is Sunday.

Friday boys

Martinsville (12-17) at Cumberland (11-18 or 10-19), 7 p.m., 6 p.m. CST

Southport (8-11, 2-2) at Terre Haute South (9-10, 0-3), 7:30 p.m.

Northview (9-11) at Clay City (16-4), 7:30 p.m.

Sullivan (17-3, 7-1) at Cloverdale (1-20, 0-9), 7:30 p.m.

Linton (16-4, 6-0) at North Central (10-10 or 9-11, 2-4), 7:30 p.m.

South Vermillion (12-8, 4-1) at Riverton Parke (3-16, 1-5), 7:30 p.m.

Parke Heritage (17-4, 6-0) at Seeger (12-7, 3-1), 7:30 p.m.

Eastern Greene (4-15, 1-4) at Shakamak (11-9, 3-3), 7:30 p.m.

Fountain Central (9-10, 2-4) at North Vermillion (11-9, 2-3), 7:30 p.m.

North Knox (7-13) at Bloomfield (9-12), 7:30 p.m.

Dugger Union (4-15) at Brown County (7-12), 7:30 p.m.

Lawrenceville (25-3, 6-0) at Paris (7-22 or 6-23, 0-6), 8:30 p.m., 7:30 CST

Saturday boys

Indian Creek (12-7, 6-2) at Sullivan, 1:30 p.m.

Evansville Harrison (17-3 or 16-4) at Terre Haute North (19-3), 7:30 p.m.

North Putnam (13-8) at Riverton Parke, 7:30 p.m.

South Putnam (8-12 or 7-13) at North Vermillion, 7:30 p.m.