Chip Photographs: Loads of Enjoyable, Lots Of… Wrong

Chip Davenport

Each Monday, Fox Sports’s Colin Cowherd has a phase initially of his second hour named, “Where Colin Was Right, Where Colin Was Wrong.”

I don’t thoughts sharing the place I used to be proper and flawed about my March 6 column’s (…Nerd Stuff) predictions, however I pale compared to Cowherd’s supply and originality.

The outcomes start within the North the place I used to be working at a 75% correctness clip among the many first three sectionals leading to a domino sample as one faculty per Northern sectional moved another out among the many fields I predicted.

I actually botched the South although, and I blame that on a poor geographic thoughts’s eye. I ought to have appeared on the Southern Indiana structure as sensibly because the IHSAA did.

The affiliation bought it proper, and so they additionally thought forward of the Sectional 13 and 14 setup when the 2 Terre haute excessive colleges consolidate in 2029.

With this stated, let’s see how I did.

My Sectional 9 guess was Chesterton, Hammond Central, LaPorte, Michigan City, and Munster: a five-team sectional.

I whiffed about what sectional discipline can be shaped with 5 groups. Aside from LaPorte, nonetheless, these guesses had been simple. The Slicers, as a substitute, had been assigned to Sectional 10. Tiger soccer followers understand it properly – house to their second sectional title in program historical past – but it surely’s the Slicers who will be a part of Concord, Goshen, and South Bend John Adams.

Warsaw was the domino touchdown into the Ft. Wayne-laden Sectional 11 comprised of Snider (our soccer season 2026 house opener), South Side, and Wayne.

Huntington North, a bump-up from its Class 4A house for near a decade, was bumped… out… of my projected Sectional 11 discipline that might have the Vikings only a drive on US Highway 24 away from its closest neighbors. They’ll be a part of Anderson in Sectional 12 the place I anticipated Anderson to be assigned.

Suddenly, you’ll see the 75%-80% success price transfer towards mediocrity: principally 50% at finest from there as a result of I didn’t look extra intently at a map once I made my South sectional predictions.

Sectional 12 will even embrace Lafayette Jefferson, and McCutcheon.

The hardest sectional from Sectionals 13 via 16, and probably a sectional that can eat its younger within the common and submit seasons is Sectional 13.

Greenfield Central, Indianapolis Cathedral, Mount Vernon (Fortville – the newly topped Class 4A basketball champs) welcomes the return of head coach Mikle Kirschener. Add New Palestine, and spoiler Pendleton Heights, and also you may arguably have one of many two hardest sectionals in Class 5A.

Sectional 14 – Indianapolis Arsenal, and Plainfield had been my solely two right predictions for task to Sectional 14. They’ll be joined by Terre Haute North and South. Cathedral and New Pal had been my two incorrect predictions, however they thrive on the kind of competitors they’ll face in Sectional 13.

We may see #13 – with 5 groups – have one among their groups transfer into Sectional 14 as a result of the merger of Terre Haute North and South will transfer them to Class 6A (a la Elkhart in 2020). My wager? Cathedral will land right here in 2027.

When I learn all of the convention adjustments among the many IHSAA this 12 months it made me really feel like I used to be again in Northeast Ohio the place it appears in randomly chosen colleges you’ll discover most of them have been a part of – a minimum of – three totally different conferences within the final 15-20 years.

Sectional 15 – I used to be right on Floyd Central, and on Seymour, however the “Bloomingtons” landed on this sectional. This made extra sense as a result of the 4 colleges comprising Sectional 16 are on, or close to, the winding Ohio River

Sectional 16 – Bloomington North and South, Castle, and Evansville North spherical out the Pocket’s 5A colleges.

Class 5A soccer might be a regularly powerful enrollment class because it has been throughout the late 2010s, and all through this present decade.