Southmont grad Kaleb Swick and the Adrian Men’s basketball team is headed where they’ve never been before — the Division III National Tournament.
The 17-11 Bulldogs defeated Hope 83-73, Calvin 80-72, and Trine 80-72 to win the MIAA Conference Championship last weekend and earn the conference’s automatic bid into the tourney.
“This is awesome,” Swick said. “At Southmont I never had the opportunity to move past the sectional as bad as I wanted to, and I feel like this makes up for a lot of where I thought I was letting Southmont and that community down. I feel like I’m a part of something here at Adrian.”
Swick originally started his collegiate career at Trine, but left the program and transferred to Adrian.
“I just didn’t feel like I was getting an opportunity at Trine, and I didn’t feel like I was going to get an opportunity to get minutes and help the team in,” he said. “So when I left the program, a few weeks after coach Lindsay (Kyle) gave me a call kind of out of surprise saying he had tried to recruit me out of high school, but I was an early commit to Trine. He was happy to see me available and kind of talked me in to coming to this program and said what they really needed was some culture guys, and thought I would be a good fit for that.”
The sophomore has started 16 games this season, and played in all 28, but found himself in a new role early into the conference season.
“We went through a little bit of a tough stretch at the beginning of conference, and we were all just willing to do what we needed to do to fix whatever was going on.”
Swick, who was a 1,000-point scorer for the Mounties in high school, is averaging 5.2 points per game, 3.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists.
“I’ve kind of had to figure out what my role was,” he said. “In high school I was relied on a lot more to score, but here they look at me more as an offensive rebound kind of guy. Finding places to fit in.”
Adrian and Swick will play at North Central in Illinois at 8:30 p.m. on Friday in the NCAA Tournament first round.
Merica picks up win over Heidelberg
North Montgomery grad and Franklin College pitcher picked up the win on the mound in an 11-5 win over Heidelberg last Saturday. Merica tossed five innings for the Grizzlies, allowing two earned runs on seven hits, while walking two and striking out four against a Heidelberg team who entered the season No. 8 in the country in Division III coming off a College World Series appearance in 2019.
Merica is 2-0 on the season in 8.1 innings pitched. The junior has allowed just three runs on eight hits, walking two and striking out 10.
Johnson takes loss against Duke
Crawfordsville grad and Purdue ace pitcher took the loss against No. 14 ranked Duke last Friday.
The junior tossed five innings, allowing two earned runs on three hits, while walking four and striking out six.
Marian Baseball sees five-game win streak snapped
North Montgomery grad Baylee Adams has helped Marian Baseball to a 10-6 record.
The Knights just saw a five-game winning streak snapped, which including taking three of four games at Tougaloo College.
In the series, Adams had two hits and two RBI. For the season the senior is hitting .271 with 12 RBI.
Long second in the mile at Horizon Indoors
Southmont grad Brooks Long finished second in the mile run for IUPUI at the Horizon League Indoor Championships.
Long finished with a time of 4:15.4, less than a second behind Youngstown State’s Sean Peterson.
Zachary scores two goals in win over Franklin
Southmont grad and Heidelberg do-it-all athlete Macy Zachary helped the women’s lacrosse team to a 19-2 win over Franklin las week.
Zachary scored two goals in the win. Heidelberg is 2-0 on the season.
