Montgomery County – the Cradle of Basketball

Montgomery County – the Cradle of Basketball
By Barry Lewis/Montgomery County Sports & More

Montgomery County is often called the “Craddle of Basketball” with three of the first four state championships coming from this county. Over the years a rich basketball history has continued.

Of the three current county schools – Crawfordsville, North Montgomery and Southmont – Crawfordsville has the longest and most storied history.

KING OF THE COUNTY
The Athenians started playing basketball in 1900 and went 9-3 which included three wins over Wabash College. Of course, for Athenian fans, the top prize in 123 years of basketball came in 1911 when the Athenians won the first IHSAA state title by beating Bluffton 42-18.

That state championship was the pinnacle of Crawfordsville basketball history. Since then, the school has come close a few other times, but has never been able to repeat that feat.

The Athenians got close again in 1942 when it advanced to the state finals before losing to Muncie Central 42-27. The Athenians had advanced to the finals with a pair of close wins in the semi-state – beating Madison 30-29 and Lawrence Central 42-38. That year the Athenians went just 10-8 in the regular season but then won eight straight tournament games before losing in the finals. Bob Clements was named to the Associated Press All-State First Team that year and was later voted onto the 1967 Silver Anniversary Team.

Then 16 years later, in 1958, the team advanced all the way to the final game of the state tournament. After rolling through the regional (beating Rockville 70-38 and Attica 85-42) and then beating Lafayette Jeff and East Chicago Washington in the semi-state. A 53-45 win over Muncie Central put the Athenians one game away from its second state title. However, a very solid Fort Wayne South team was not going to be denied and crushed the Athenians 63-34. The team didn’t walk away completely empty handed as Dick Haslam won the Mental Attitude Award that year. He also was named to the Indiana All-Star team and was named to the 1983 Silver Anniversary Team.

The Athenians would wait 21 years to make another deep run. In 1979 the team made an improbable run. After completing the regular season just 12-8, the team barely made it out of the North Montgomery Sectional earning a 55-54 win over host Chargers. Then came a five-point win over Lebanon and a four-point win over Mooresville to earn a spot in the Lafayette Semi-state.

At Mackey Arena, Crawfordsville – coached by Paul Curtis – knocked off Gary Roosevelt 60-52 and found itself just three games away from another trip to the state championship game. Anderson ended that dream with an 87-55 loss in the semi-state championship.

Class basketball has not been kind to Crawfordsville. The school has a total of 41 sectional titles, but just one since class basketball began, that coming in 2014. Since the semi-state run of 1979, Crawfordsville has managed to win just three other sectional titles (1985, 1989 and 2014).

The Athenians are the king of the county with more than 2,900 games played and more than 1,600 wins.

The school has had three coaches who piled up more than 150 wins. Curtis is the school leader at 169, while L.J.C. Freeman has 153 and current head coach David Pierce also has 153.

Crawfordsville has had a total of nine players who have reached the 1,000-point club and Matt Petty leads the way with 1,608. He was also the last Athenian to be named to the Indiana All-Star team in 1989 before he went on to play at Creighton.

In 1994, Matt McCarty had the school’s all-time best single season as he scored 719 points, including a school record 57 points against Frankfort.

THE “NEWBIES’
In the fall of 1971, Montgomery County went from nine schools to three as North Montgomery and Southmont opened as consolidation hit the county. These two new schools joined Crawfordsville as the only schools in the county.

North Montgomery hit the ground running winning its first sectional in just its third year of existence. In fact, from 1974 to 1983 the Chargers were in its heyday winning six of its total of 11 overall sectional titles.

Some of the best single season came during that time frame as well. In the first year, Coach Chuck Kristen led the Chargers to an amazing 19-4 record and then in 1973-74 he led them to an 18-4 record and a sectional title. Dwayne Rater led the Chargers to a 19-4 record in the 1983-84 season which is tied with the 2005-2006 season for having the best record ever for a North Montgomery team.

It took the Chargers nearly 20 years to get back on top of its game. Head coach Scott Radeker led the Chargers to a great run from 2004-05 to 2008-09 when the team won sectional titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and then added a fourth title in 2009.

The Chargers are still searching for that first regional title.

Rakeder and Kristen both picked up 100 wins while coaching at North Montgomery. Radeker left with a 120-80 record and Kristen’s record was 109-91.

The school has had a total of five 1,000-point scorers led by DJ Byrd with 1,608. His total is the second most all-time for the county trailing only Linden’s Daryl Warren who scored 2,083 in the final year before consolidation. Byrd is the school’s only boys Indiana All-Star, making that team in 2009, and later went on to play at Purdue.

LATE ARRIVING
It took Southmont a while to get its footing on the basketball scene as it wasn’t until 1994 before it won its first basketball sectional.

That game is remembered as one of the most intense sectional finals in Montgomery County as the Mounties defeated Crawfordsville 84-81 in double overtime.

Unfortunately for the Mounties the wait for sectional title No. 2 was 28 years before Coach Jake Turner led the Mounties to the South Putnam Class 2A sectional title in 2022 by downing Parke Heritage 64-49 on its way to a school-record 19-win season.

While sectional titles have been hard to come by for the school, the period from the mid-1980s through 1998 was a time of success. Nine of the school’s top 13 regular seasons came during this time including the 17-win seasons under Roger Fleetwood and Ron Henricks.

Only one coach has won 100 games at Southmont and that was Fleetwood who ended his 10-year career with the Mounties with a 119-95 record before moving to Georgia and winning a state title. In addition, the Mounties’ first coach was Hall of Fame coach Pat Rady who coached one year before leaving for Winchester.

There have been nine players reach the 1,000-point club for Southmont. The all-time leader is Cam Chadd, a 2018 grad, and his career total was 1,479 points. That total places him fifth on the Montgomery County all-time list.