Road Warriors

Tonight, we head west to Huntington for our sixth consecutive game away from home. It's an unfortunate situation that emerged due to a new event at Snider and the shifting of the Whitko game to late January. Otherwise, we would have had at least one game in our own gym in the month of December. In any event, we'll make the 30-minute drive tonight to take on one of the state's most storied programs.

I did my student teaching at Huntington back in 1988 under the newly hired girls basketball coach, Fred Fields. I enjoyed sharing stories and perspectives with him as I had already logged three seasons as a coach on my dad's staff at Columbia City by then. in 1990, Huntington won the state championship. They won again in 1995, a remarkable feat considering that they did it with a completely different group of players. During my tenure at Columbia City, our two teams did battle a number of times, often in the deeper stages of the state tournament series. Fred is in the Hall of Fame now, joining my dad as one of the earliest inductees from the collection of girls basketball coaches in Indiana. He still checks in from time to time as we are making noise in the tournament and I appreciate the fact that he hasn't forgotten about me despite his notable coaching accomplishments.

Huntington looks a bit different these days. They still play a tough schedule, being one of the biggest schools in the entire state. However, they haven't been able to crack the win column yet this year. I know it's just a matter of time - I just hope it isn't tonight!