Massive flooding in northern Indiana derailed a myriad of events in February and was a precursor for one of the wettest starts for a year in Indiana history. (Photos by Mike Deak and James Costello)

WARSAW – In a day and age where everything is magnified, impulsively spoken about and broadcast – often without thought – and scrutinized, there are times when you tip your cap and move on. Other times, you learn to laugh at yourself.

As we wrap up our 2017-18 year-in-review items, we take a look at some of the good and bad that became yet another year to remember, or in isolated cases, one to forget. We start off this two-part series with some of the ‘lose some’ items that may or may not have been headline news.

Rain, Rain (and snow! and floods! and sub-40s!) GO AWAY!

Nothing says BAD like bad weather. Well, historical footnotes were made throughout February, March, April and May when it wouldn’t stop raining. As this column is being constructed, it’s still raining. A warm-up in February, combined with a wicked stretch of rain, flooded not just Kosciusko County and surrounding areas, but much of the midwest and eastern portions of the country. Portions of the basketball season were lost, athletic directors were scrambling to find any sort of appeasement to remedy teams and fans trying to find their hoops fix as the state tournament was just around the corner. It’s all relative, considering all of the property, homes and landscapes that were destroyed within miles of nearly any river in the area. The images of Rice Field at Elkhart Central literally looking like a bathtub, downtown Goshen and Plymouth having people kayaking through parking lots, and the TV news running reports as recent as last week about people still dealing with flood problems and waterlogged basements. It was a sad state of affairs for sure.

That led into March and it being about 35 degrees for an entire month, which cancelled much of the spring lid lifters, then into April and May where the most viewed athletic websites were Facebook and Twitter, if only because people had no idea at 4 p.m. if a game was going to get in because of the third-wettest spring in the history of Michiana. To put into perspective from a local angle, between April 19 and May 4 NorthWood baseball had to play 12 games, including six days in a row between the 23rd and 30th of April to make up for only playing five games the first three weeks of the scheduled calendar.

Flu, The Great Equalizer

It’s often stated that water is the great equalizer. Well, for about a four-week stretch in December and January, influenza had the upper hand on just about everyone.

Not many friends were shaking hands near Christmas as seemingly everyone was coughing and sneezing and wheezing. It got so bad after Christmas that teams were actually cancelling full games because players were in short supply. Triton and Oregon-Davis cancelled a JV girls basketball game because O-D couldn’t field a full roster from the flu, and possibly the most visible and graphic epidemic was at the Northern Lakes Conference wrestling tournament, where teams were scrambling to just fill rosters. Both Northridge and Wawasee had top-level athletes out from the flu for the tournament, and Wawasee’s were crushing, losing three state-ranked competitors that likely sent Wawasee from championship contention to third despite being the No. 1-ranked team in the state.

NorthWood also had serious issues in its wrestling program and dealing with viruses as it started its season in quarantine, when fears of MRSA were abound. While it was determined it wasn’t full-blown MRSA, the team still had to adjust to the slow start and precautions had to be made.

Crutches; Curses

Injuries are expected in athletics. All of the good stories of recovery and overcoming adversity are always in play and anticipated. We hope to be reporting on a rebounding pair of ACL tears that broke our hearts.

Both came at the end of girls basketball season, and both happened to great kids with bright futures. Unfortunately for Tippecanoe Valley’s Emily Peterson, it wasn’t the first time an injury derailed a season. For Triton’s Whytnie Miller, it just came at a really bad time. The Valley junior was one of the rocks of a team that hovered in the Class 3-A top 10 all season, and were prepared for a run in the state tournament. But disaster struck in the opening round of the Fairfield Sectional, as Peterson was chasing down a breakaway against Lakeland and went down. A pindrop could be heard between Peterson’s yelps. She did come back to support her club a couple days later, but Peterson took all of her hugs and well-wishes on crutches and a giant knee brace. After needing surgery to fix a shoulder after her freshman volleyball season, we certainly hope to see her moving freely this fall.

As for Miller, it was just bad karma as Triton was getting thumped by Oregon-Davis in the Class 1-A sectional, and the two teams were playing out the string. Miller, who was having a breakout campaign for Triton, was just moving one direction and her knee didn’t follow suit. The injury not only soured a season-ender in basketball, but kept her from playing softball in the spring, which disoriented the entire program. Miller was expected to be the team’s primary pitcher, which her absence forced Nicole Sechrist into the role and scrambled the Triton infield.

Mark Gordon left the Tippecanoe Valley soccer program just two seasons after bringing the school into the IHSAA.

The Ugly Underbelly Of Social Media

OK, we get it. Social media is the fuel for the new media generation. Twitter can be a great thing when finding out that games are cancelled, athletes signed letters of intent, or athletes are unhappy with coaches and instead of working harder, took to their cell phones to voice their displeasure about their lack of entitlement. Tongue in cheek, of course, but are we far off?

There were some major ‘talking points’ over the course of the school year that our own platforms saw some serious ridiculousness. In the fall alone, Dave Anson, Steve Moriarity and Duane Burkhart all came under varying levels of fire for issues that could have been completely avoided had social media not gotten involved. Anson ‘not being patriotic’, Moriarity ‘intentionally throwing Gatorade bottles at players’ and Burkhart not cleaning house because of it, then, heaven forbid, the naming of what most still refer to as simply “Death Valley” really saw social media in those pockets go berzerk.

More than a few athletes were seen at times on Twitter voicing displease about basketball playing time, or just being sour in general about how the season was going. Twitter also became the home to one of the worst kept secrets in Kosciusko County football history in the leadup to Bart Curtis being named football coach at Warsaw. Not a big secret when media members from all over northern Indiana knew a week or longer and were plastering it all over Twitter. But that is what it is. Everything on Twitter is always up for interpretation, starting with the POTUS and working down.

The Decision Wasn’t Unified

Maybe the first time any of the three of us in the IFN Sports Department had ever heard of this, but a team destined for the regional of a state tournament was called back.

It happened to Wawasee’s Unified Track Team at this year’s Bremen Unified Track Sectional, where clerical errors in scoring had Wawasee jumping all over the leaderboards. Both at the meet and after everyone had left Marshall County. The Warriors had been told at random points of the scoring process that they were anywhere from second to fourth place, but needed to be within the top three teams to qualify for the next round. When the awards were handed out at Bremen, Wawasee was within the top three after being named runner-up to eventual state champion Elkhart Memorial.

What would come next can only be labeled as embarrassing for the IHSAA. Scores were refigured, and Wawasee plummeted from second to fourth after a third scoring correction was made the Monday after the weekend tournament. Well wishes were already buried on social platforms, stories were already posted online and in print, and Wawasee was stoked to take its chances in making the Unified State Finals for the first time. But the announcement Monday approved by the IHSAA leveled Wawasee off in fourth at 105 points, leaving the Warriors home and both DeKalb and East Noble with 109s and on to Kokomo.

Other Items Of Note

We also saw some just plain weirdness that warrants at least a mention.

To the Lakewood Park dad who felt the need to run on the basketball court not only once, but twice, during the girls basketball sectional championship game at Bethany Christian: I hope your head still hurts.

We have to say it again. Spring weather sucked this year. Fitting the first day of the softball sectional was washed out, moving around nearly everything and everyone.

After working so hard for so long to get the sport into Akron, Valley soccer coach Mark Gordon stepped down after just two seasons. The only two seasons of Valley soccer. We hope Valley can carry on and build a formidable program, as interest is there.

How Braxton Alexander was booted from the IHSAA state wrestling tournament. In the semi-state, Alexander – a state placer as a sophomore for Wawasee – was illegally slammed to the mat, and the match was immediately suspended for concussion protocol as Alexander laid unconscious in the circle. The injury time, however, was started. And while the mandatory protocol was run, to which Alexander passed, the time ran out and Alexander was ruled an injury default and was eliminated from the state tournament. Questions immediately followed that were not answered as to why a mandatory protocol counts against the clock. It cost one of the state’s best 126-pounders a shot at a title.

Wawasee wrestler Braxton Alexander saw his season end on a technicality, one among many in the debate on injury protocol.