Porter County's fall in the IHSAA tournament: 13 sectional titles and two football teams still playing

Porter County schools won 13 sectional titles in the IHSAA's fall team tournaments, and Chesterton and Wheeler football are still playing, with regional games Friday, Nov. 13.

Girls teams won six of those titles and boys teams won six, in volleyball, soccer, cross country, girls golf, boys tennis and football, and Valparaiso won a sectional in coed unified flag football, according to the IHSAA's brackets and the results it posts or links. Two cross country teams, five cross country runners entered on their own, Chesterton's girls golf team, a Valparaiso golfer and a Chesterton tennis player also reached state finals.

Volleyball

Chesterton won the Class 4A sectional at Valparaiso, sweeping Portage and Hobart and beating Valparaiso 3-1. The Trojans came into the LaPorte regional 30-4 and lost 3-0 to Penn on Oct. 24. The school announced Thursday that Luca Bombacino, a four-year varsity player who holds Chesterton's career and single-season kills records, was named to the Indiana High School Volleyball Coaches Association's first all-state team and signed with the University of Michigan.

Boone Grove won the 2A sectional at Andrean without dropping a set, beating Andrean, Lighthouse CPC and Wheeler, then lost 3-0 to Lakeland at the NorthWood regional to finish 25-6. In Class 1A, Washington Township reached the Kouts sectional final and lost 3-0 to Marquette Catholic.

Soccer

Valparaiso's girls won the 3A sectional at Chesterton, beating Hobart 1-0 and the host Trojans 2-1, before Crown Point won the regional semifinal 5-0 at Valparaiso on Oct. 14. Boone Grove's girls, 15-1 going into the regional, won the 1A sectional at Wheeler by beating Washington Township 2-1, Morgan Township 8-0 and Andrean 2-0, then lost 3-2 at Trinity Academy South Bend.

On the boys side, Chesterton won the 3A sectional at Portage, beating Hobart 2-1, Portage 6-0 and Valparaiso 2-1 in the final. Lake Central ended the Trojans' season in the home regional semifinal on Oct. 15, winning a shootout 4-3 after a 1-1 tie. Morgan Township won the 1A sectional at DeMotte Christian by beating Wheeler, Washington Township and Hammond Academy of Science and Technology, took its regional semifinal 4-0 over Elkhart Christian Academy and lost the Westview regional final 9-0 to Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian, which won the state title. Boone Grove's boys reached the 2A sectional final and lost 6-0 to Hammond Bishop Noll.

Cross country

Chesterton's boys and Valparaiso's girls won the sectional at Chesterton on Oct. 17, by the MileSplit results the IHSAA links from its tournament page. Chesterton's Ryan Nix and Spencer Martin finished first and second in the boys race, and Valparaiso's Whitney Anderson won the girls race.

At the Oct. 31 state finals at the LaVern Gibson course in Terre Haute, Morgan Township's girls placed 16th of 25 teams with 417 points, led by Shae Bucher in 45th place in 18 minutes, 34.5 seconds. Anderson ran as an individual and placed 57th in 18:42.4, and Valparaiso's Amber Johnson and Eavan Daly and Washington Township's Jody Stump also ran on their own.

Chesterton's boys were 20th of 25 teams with 457 points. Nix finished 11th in 15:16.0 and Martin was 50th, and Valparaiso's Layne Galindo ran as an individual.

Girls golf

Chesterton won the Valparaiso sectional on Sept. 21 with 338, and senior Kristin McCoy was medalist with a 77. Five days later, Chesterton finished second at the regional at Sandy Pines Golf Club in DeMotte, three shots behind Lake Central, and Valparaiso sophomore Kennedy Gutierrez won the regional outright with a 76.

At the Oct. 2 and 3 state finals at Battle Ground Golf Club, Gutierrez shot 75 and 74 for a 149, 5 over par, tying for fifth. Chesterton placed 15th of 18 teams with 725, and McCoy shot 162 to tie for 32nd.

Boys tennis

Valparaiso won its own sectional, beating Chesterton 3-2 and Portage 5-0, and lost 4-1 at LaPorte in the regional semifinal on Oct. 6. Chesterton senior Peytan Belegal reached the singles state finals at North Central High School in Indianapolis, where he beat Plymouth's Liam Hanyzewski 6-0, 6-1 on Oct. 17 before losing 6-1, 6-1 to DeKalb's unbeaten Oliver Derrow. The IHSAA lists Belegal at 14-3 in the regular season and 4-1 in the tournament.

Unified flag football

Valparaiso won the coed unified flag football sectional it hosted on Oct. 3, beating East Chicago Central 51-12 and South Bend Adams 42-18, then lost 51-40 to Twin Lakes in a regional semifinal at Wawasee on Oct. 10.

Football

Penn, unbeaten, ended Valparaiso's season 41-14 in a 6A sectional semifinal at Valparaiso on Oct. 30, and Portage lost 38-7 at Elkhart the same night. Boone Grove fell 42-14 at Wheeler in a 2A sectional opener on Oct. 23.

Chesterton (6-5), which won the first football sectional in school history, plays at Concord at 6:30 p.m. Central on Friday. Wheeler (11-1) plays at unbeaten Eastside at the same time, and tickets for both are $10 through Eventlink.