TERRE HAUTE —
Let’s talk high school basketball.
Indiana boys teams are in the final week of the regular season while postseason play began Monday night for Illinois boys teams.
And eight Indiana girls teams are set for Final Four Semistate action.
In Illinois, Casey-Westfield is the host school for a 2A regional, where four of the six teams have winning records.
Marshall and Robinson are the top two seeded teams in the event and split decisions while Casey had a fine season against top competition and Georgetown-Ridge Farm won more than 20 games.
Paris met Georgetown-Ridge Farm in the first game on Monday and Casey met Cumberland in the nightcap.
Marshall faces the winner of the first game tonight and Robinson takes on the Casey-Cumberland winner on Wednesday. Championship action is set for Friday.
Two 1A regionals will be played at Chrisman and Hutsonville, with the Hutsonville-Palestine team seeded No. 1 in its own regional and Little Illini Conference rival Oblong No. 2. The Tigers defeated Oblong 47-40 in their final games last week.
The Tigers took Marshall into overtime earlier in the month as the Lions finished with a five-game winning streak and coach Tom Brannan won his 400th game — done in 20 years — in the process.
Robinson finished even stronger, being victorious in all but one of its games since Christmas, mostly against Apollo Conference rivals in its final season in the league.
Arcola and Tri-County are the top seeds at Chrisman but Martinsville, which won 11 games for the first time since 2007, could have something to say about the outcome.
Riverton Parke is one of the Indiana girls teams involved in semistate action and will face Class A’s top-ranked Fort Wayne Canterbury.
My [Northeast] Dubois Jeeps won the West Washington Regional, beating Tecumseh and Borden after Borden took out unbeaten Barr-Reeve. The Jeeps will face Southwestern, which beat Clay City for its regional championship.
It would be nice to see the Panthers and Jeeps in Terre Haute next week.
Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference teams still alive in the girls tournament are Ben Davis and North Central; they have a chance to meet in the state finals.
• Tom-Cattin’ It — Missouri Valley Conference teams finished 4-6 in Bracketbuster games. Wichita State had the biggest win at Davidson, shooting 70 percent in the second half, and Creighton rallied to beat a good Long Beach State team.
Evansville and Illinois State were the other Valley winners.
• The Marshall junior varsity finished the season with a 13-1 record. Chris Kessler is the coach.
• Martinsville defeated Whiteland in boys basketball to claim the Mid-State Conference title. It was the Artesians’ first game with Jerry Sichting on the sidelines as coach.
• Chad Dockery is the new football coach at Mooresville. The Evansville native has been coaching in North Carolina.
• Lebanon won a girls sectional but lost in the regional, with former assistant Penny Spolyar coaching the team after coach Dave Ferrell and assistant Troy Terrill resigned during the sectional.
• Yogi Ferrell of Park Tudor and Gary Harris of Hamilton Southeastern have been chosen to play in the McDonald’s all-star basketball games.
• No Indiana teams were in the top 25 of the USA Today prep cage polls last week. Hamilton Southeastern was seventh in the boys Midwest Region and the Hamilton Southeastern girls — beaten by North Central in the sectional — were 10th in the Midwest Region.
• Chad Collins continues to have tough luck on the PGA Tour in early events. He missed the cut by two shots last week.
Tom Reck may be contacted by telephone at (812) 232-3231, by email at tm_reck@yahoo.com or by mail at 4284 South 5th Street, Apt. 3, Terre Haute, IN 47802.
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