H.S. Boys Basketball: Hanover Central 43, South Central 16

Team	1st Qtr	2nd Qtr	3rd Qtr	4th Qtr	Final
SOUTH CENTRAL (0-11)	0	4	5	7	16
HANOVER CENTRAL (6-7)	10	8	4	21	43

Porter County Conference Tournament Quarterfinals - Wednesday, 1-21-2004 at Boone Grove

HANOVER CENTRAL (43) Dave Ploetz 2-4-8, Adam Suarez 6-0-12, Owen Goff 2-1-5, Jeff Johnson 2-1-7, Brandon Hegg 0-0-0, Greg Shroka 0-0-0 Jeremy Peterson 1-0-2, Kyle Whitted 0-0-0, Matt Jackson 4-1-9, Dave Billinski 0-0-0. TOTALS: 17-7-43.
FTS: 7-9, 77.7% Ploetz 4-4, Goff 1-2, Johnson 1-2, Jackson 1-1.
TURNOVERS: 10
REBOUNDS: Owen Goff - 6
ASSISTS: Dave Ploetz - 4
STEALS: Jeff Johnson - 3
FOULED OUT: none.
3-POINT GOALS (2) Jeff Johnson 2.

SOUTH CENTRAL (16) Mike Wirtes 2-0-5, Jake Hepner 1-0-3, Heath Rosebaum 1-0-2, Bobby Foster 2-0-4, Jeff Intagliata 1-0-2, Mike Tylka 0-0-0, Evan Walter 0-0-0. TOTALS: 7-0-16.
FTS: 0-0, 0 percent:
TURNOVERS: 18
ASSISTS: Mike Wirtes, Mike Tylka - 2
REBOUNDS: Jake Hepner - 3
3-POINT GOALS (2) Mike Wirtes, Jake Hepner.

PORTER TOWNSHIP (1-21-2004) - One of the featured games in the 2004 Porter County Conference (PCC) tournament projected to be Boone Grove vs. Hanover Central in Saturday's 12:30 p.m. semifinals. But projections in this year's PCC had been about as solid as Howard Dean's presidential campaign. Boone Grove's girls (14-3) and Morgan Township's boys (9-2), both, the top-ranked teams in the 8-team brackets, both were eliminated in quarterfinal games.

The tournament returned to form Thursday night. Boone Grove, the defending sectional champion, crushed Kouts 64-40 and Hanover Central defeated a stall by winless South Central 43-16.

Hanover's victory was a little odd as South Central chose to hold the ball the entire first half, trailing 18-4 at the break. The Satellites, who had lost to HC by 43 points on Dec. 19, took only one first quarter shot and just five in the second period.

"We wanted to shorten the game," said South Central coach Phil Leonard. "We wanted to frustrate them. They (HC) are an athletic team. If we got into any type of up-tempo game, we'd be done, as you saw in the fourth quarter. The coaches were 'sold out' until the half. If it was a wide open layup, they could take it but that was all."

SC got two such layups by HC (6-7), who got six points from center Adam Suarez and seven from forward Matt Jackson to defeat the stall as the cheering sections from both schools looked on in some wonderment.

Some were unhappy that South Central, in their first-ever appearance in the PCC tournament, did not make more of an effort to win, but South Central probably did have to go to 'Plan B' after the 85-43 loss.

"It's a great tournament," said Leonard, who is in his first year as South Central's coach. "A great conference. I'm glad we're part of it. I'm from down in Terre Haute. This is the first time I've seen it. I'm just hoping we can have some success."

Hanover, which lost by 31 points to Wheeler in the 2003 PCC championship game, led 10-0 with South Central taking only a desperation shot at the end of the first quarter. The score was 14-0 before SC took a 'real' shot, a lay-up by Jeff Intagliata with 3:21 left in the half. The Satellites scored the first basket of the second half to make the score 18-6 but they continued to hold the ball, missing a three-point attempt by Mike Wirtes with 2:23 to go in the third quarter.

At that point, four consecutive free throws by Dave Ploetz upped the HC lead to 22-9 before Wirtes sank a three-point shot ending the third quarter. South Central attacked the basket in the fourth quarter and Hanover outscored them 21-7.

"Actually, we did," he said. "After the first game with that score, we thought they'd slow things down. We wanted to make sure we'd play some aggressive style half court defense. We wanted to get some of the tournament jitters out which we knew we'd have. We made some turnovers. We were prepared to win the game 18-4 (the half-time score). We thought that if they could hold the ball and win 2-0, they would do that."

"We just tried to invade the passing lanes and make if difficult for them. We played a 3-2 zone and we trapped out of that sometimes. Just trying to take the next pass away. The only thing we gave up was the skip pass and they would have to recognize that."

"From a coaching aspect, it's interesting because you have to keep your kids disciplined. This was good for us because we might see this as the season goes on. Not to panic and do what you have to do."

Uran clearly is determined to win the PCC league championship tournament, something Hanover has not done in 20 years.

"We're staying overnight in a hotel in Valparaiso. We don't want to disclose it because we don't want our fans to come there. We are going to get proper rest this year. With Wheeler leaving the conference, we're the only team coming back with a lot of experience. We want to get proper rest, which is something we didn't do last year, and be ready to play on Saturday."

PCC NOTES: Hanover Central is now wearing a deep blue road uniform that is markedly different from what they were last year. The pants and jersey's have stars down the sides and the blue color is much richer than the present-day Hanover team wear.

"Those uniforms are from 1980," said HC coach Dave Uran, who said that a senior from 1984 still had it. "One of our alumni had it. He was a senior from the '84 team. We thought that since this was the 20th anniversary of our first PCC tournament championship. Since that is the jewel of our schedule along with the sectional. We sent them out to North Carolina and they duplicated it. That's all computer generated. We tried to showcase that uniform."

Uran had his team's entire schedule planned out for PCC week. "We had it all planned out right down to the girls (team) beating Boone Grove. We're going to Morgan Friday to watch the girls play. Then we're going to a hotel in Valparaiso."

"We're going to be in our rooms by 10 p.m. and it's going to be lights out. We're going to have a coach in every room. We finished second here last year and, with Wheeler leaving, we consider ourselves the defending champs. We want to act like we've been here before. Because we have."

Subzero wind-chill temperature and South Central's 0-11 record surprisingly did not cut down the crowd at Thursday night's PCC quarterfinals. With four schools playing, the crowd varied during the two games but late in the first quarterfinal game, there were approximately 1,500 people in the Boone Grove gym, which holds 2,000.

Boone Grove dominated Kouts from the start, winning Thursday's early quarterfinal 64-50. The Wolves led 23-7 at the quarter and 41-17 early in the second half.

Senior Phil Bien (10.1 ppg.) had 19 points and five blocked shots while 6-4 junior Danny Borys (18.0 ppg.) scored 19 more, including eight in the second quarter. Junior guard Joe Faron collected six assists, many to Borys, who got position in the foul lane for easy layups. Kouts sank 20 of 25 from the foul line to make the score as close as it was. Kouts senior scoring leader John Lauer (19.6) who suffered a stress fracture in his foot last month, returned and scored 12 points. Boone, a 13-time champion of northwest Indiana's oldest tournament, sank 24 of 48 from the field.

Jan. 3: 38-53 at Lowell (7-4)
Jan. 6: 55-45 (OT) Whiting (1-11)
Jan. 9: 50-52 at BOONE GROVE (6-5)
Jan. 13: 76-53 Beecher (Ill.)
Jan. 15: 57-62 at Gavit (4-8)

Hanover Central defeats South Central stall, 43-16, in PCC Tourney Quarterfinals

A USA-365.com Special Report By Mark Smith

Porter County Conference Tournament Quarterfinals - Wednesday, 1-21-2004 at Boone Grove