My View/Your View: Heritage Christian on the Verge of History

Should Heritage Christian need any extra motivation entering the Indiana High School Athletic Association Class 2A baseball championship game on Saturday at Victory Field, here’s all they need to know: A place in history is at stake.

The Eagles have an opportunity to become only the third Indiana school to win three state championships in the same school year since multi-class sports came about in the 1997-98 school year. That, of course, pertains to sports classified under the “class team sports’’ umbrella.

That’s also a rare achievement, indeed.

Fort Wayne Bishop Luers, another 2A school, did it in the 2007-08 season by winning state in baseball, basketball and football. But the Northeast Indiana school is the only one to do it in three major male sports. Actually, it became the first school to win the “three major male’’ sports titles in one year since all were first recognized by the Indiana High School Athletic Association in 1973.

Ironically, in order to make such history, the Panthers needed to beat Heritage Christian (21-6) on the gridiron that year.

Cathedral added three state titles in the 2006-07 season, winning in baseball, football (4A) and girls volleyball.

So far, the Eagles have won state titles in the same year in both a male and female sport. And now, Heritage Christian, which won the Jasper Semistate, last Saturday by beating Evansville Mater Dei 10-6, has a opportunity to wrap up its third state title in the 2008-09 school year as it makes its first state finals appearance in baseball.

The Eagles, who join Class 4A power Westfield – the 1998 Class 3A champion, which beat Castle 9-3 in Saturday’s semistate at Jasper – as the only Indianapolis-area schools advancing to Victory Field, hope to follow in the footsteps of the North side Indianapolis school’s football team and girls basketball team.

Heritage Christian’s football team outlasted Lewis Cass 17-14 in November, and the girls basketball team became the first team to win four straight championships in the same class by surviving Oak Hill 60-58 in overtime in March.

So should the Eagles win a third state title this weekend, do we need to add an asterik, since like Cathedral there’s a girls state title involved? Probably … just for the record, you know.

Regardless, winning three state titles recognized as “class sports’’ in the same school year certainly would rate as a special accomplishment, I would think … no matter what the gender.

Any thoughts on the subject? Please contact me at VYPE.com/centralindiana .

Mark Morrow is an online columnist for VYPE High School Sports Magazine, Central Indiana. He can be reached at mediamarko@sbcglobal.net or by leaving a comment.