It’s been a historic start to the season for the Southmont boys basketball team. The Mounties are a perfect 7-0 and have risen to No. 8 in the most recent Class 2A Associated Press poll. Come Friday night however the Mounties will treat it like they’re 0-0 as they will take on Western Boone in the opening game of the Sugar Creek Classic at Crawfordsville High School. The Stars were actually the last team that the Mounties faced back on Dec. 17 in what was a 54-35 win for the Mounties.
Southmont comes in with goal of taking home the coveted Sugar Creek Classic paddle, and to do that they’ll have to win for a second time against a very familiar opponent.
“They play extremely hard and you can’t overlook teams like that,” Southmont coach Jake Turner said of the Stars. “You have to be ready from the opening tip and we struggled early in the game when we last played them. They out-hustled us and won most of the 50-50 balls and that’s something that can’t happen on Friday if we want to win. We’ll have a good game plan going in and I know that Coach Oakley will as well.”
In the Dec. 17 victory, Avery Saunders scored 22 points to lead the Mounties and Logan Oppy added 15. Saunders has been the catalyst all season long for Southmont averaging 19 points and eight rebounds, while Oppy is scoring 15 a game. Carson Chadd does the dirty work inside and averages 10 points and 8.5 rebounds. The Mounties big three continues to be the main reason for their success.
While it’s going to be a very familiar opponent, the game plan for each team may change multiple times before and during the game.
“They may try to throw a few new wrinkles in early on, or they could to go what worked again against us, you just never know,” Turner said. “That’s really where our week of practice and preparation comes in and also sometimes it simply comes down to going out and being a basketball player.”
Southmont is in search of it’s third Sugar Creek Classic title in school history and the first since 2018. This season more than any seems like the perfect time for the Mounties to re-claim the paddle.
“To win this tournament was one of the goals that we set out for ourselves at the beginning of the year,” Turner said. “It’s going to take two great games for that to happen. I told the kids at the beginning of practice on Wednesday is that talent plus work ethic plus discipline plus fundamentals equals championships. Right now we’ve got the talent and work ethic and I’m starting to see some good signs in our discipline and our fundamentals so hopefully it pays off on Friday and carries over into Saturday.”
One thing to note for the Mounties is that they haven’t played since that Dec. 17 game. Turner sees it as a double-edged sword as his guys were playing really well, but they also needed some time off as well.
“When you’re playing as well as we have, sometimes you want to keep that going,” he said. “Also on the other hand some of our guys were banged up and they needed to rest. Now with the time off all of them seem to be pretty healthy so that’s the good thing.”
Southmont and Western Boone will tip off at 6 p.m. at Crawfordsville. The winner will play in the Championship game Saturday night at 7:30 against the winner of North Montgomery and Crawfordsville.
