Saints likely unfazed by foes from haunted town
“How well I remember my first encounter with The Devils's Brew.
I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon – and
went right on stumbling for several days thereafter.”
– W.C. Fields, American comic & actor (1880-1946)
Saints plan spirited send-off,
Lutheran will face Triton High School of Bourbon in a 10:30 a.m. start at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. Fans are asked to be at the school, 5555 South Arlington Avenue in Franklin Township, for an 8 a.m. breakfast. Festivities in providing lots of “Saints Spirit” will include:
Fans will line the parking lot send the team buses off, and then travel in a caravan to the State Finals at Conseco. |
Fans of Lutheran High School boys' basketball are asked to help with “send-off” festivities on Saturday, March 22, before the team contends for the IHSAA Class A state championship.There seem to be some tall tales staggering down U.S. Highway 31 from northern Indiana these days. Especially accounts of the Triton High School basketball team and its hometown of Bourbon, Indiana, in Marshall County.
Some of these stories are quite relevant to the IHSAA Class A state championship boys' basketball game to be contested between Triton and the Franklin Township-based Lutheran Saints on Saturday, March 22, at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis.
Others, though, may or may not be the figment of some imagination inspired by a few nightly swigs from the ol' bourbon jug.
Ranked No. 3 among Indiana 's smallest-school classification, Triton's basketball team is the subject of some skyscraper achievements that will accompany the Trojans and their fans the 125 miles southward to the State Finals. That's about two and one-half hours from the school's hoops home on the northeast edge of Bourbon, a town of about 1,700 residents located at the intersection of Indiana Highway 331 and Old U.S. Highway 30 (about 11 miles east of Plymouth and 16.5 miles west of Warsaw).
Historically, the town's name was selected nearly 150 years ago by organizers who came from Bourbon County, Kentucky, an area that is best known for being the birthplace of bourbon whiskey.
While the scouting report on Triton's basketball team has been somewhat intimidating to most of the Trojans' opponents of late, the research on Bourbon produces some downright scary revelations. For example, the ghost reports being passed on by residents are enough to make anybody reassess spending any amount of time there, especially after dark when the corks start popping off those whiskey jugs. In fact, it is said that even some of the deceased refuse to rest in peace in this town.
Although some residents argue these ghoulish visions are untrue, a sampling of what are considered recent spooky sightings as listed by ghostsofamerica.com include:
- A menacing beast being distinguished on one or two occasions climbing out of a drain hole on a Bourbon residential road on a dark night.
- The ghost of a gentleman dressed as a gardener sometimes being noticed snooping in mailboxes in the early morning hours in Bourbon.
- A poltergeist in a police force uniform often being seen performing a piece of music on a fiddle in a Bourbon house.
- The ghost of an aged guy with a long white beard being spotted on many instances in a Bourbon high school at night pacing the corridors. It doesn't report if it is Triton High School, or the private high school, Bourbon Christian School, up on North Main Street.
- A woman with an axe sticking out of her head often being perceived in a mirror in a Bourbon home.
- A knight's armor from the Middle Ages devoid of a human being inside sometimes being observed looking for an object near Bass Lake State Beach, not far from Bourbon.
The reports on the Triton boys' basketball team are considered much more reliable than the town's ghost sightings.
Again, from an historic vantage point, Triton basketball programs have produced numerous documented sightings at IHSAA post-season tournaments.
** Triton girls' teams have harvested five Class A sectional crowns that translated into a pair of regional and semi-state titles that extended to consecutive state championships in 2000 (57-54 in overtime over Rising Sun) and 2001 (55-38 over White River Valley).
** While Triton boys' teams are looking for a first-ever state championship against Lutheran, the Trojans have managed to populate their trophy case with hardware representing six sectional and three regional titles, along with this season's semi-state success.
One of Triton's more memorable post-season runs came 11 years after small-town Milan shocked the basketball world by winning the Indiana state championship in an open-class format.
In 1965, the tiny-school Trojans bested all comers at the Plymouth Sectional and at the Logansport Regional venues, before finally losing to Fort Wayne North Side at the Fort Wayne Semi-state. North Side then lost to Indianapolis Washington 64-57 in that year's State Finals headliner at Butler Fieldhouse, one year before the fabled barn on the Butler University campus became known as Hinkle Fieldhouse.
While No. 10-ranked Lutheran, with a roster that includes 10 seniors, has experienced some rather scary moments – the Saints have trailed in the second half during their last three tourney outings – in gaining a State Finals berth, Triton has survived some anxious moments, too.
The Trojans' seniors, in particular, also have been dreaming for four years about a shot at a state championship. It has been the late-game heroics of junior Colton Keel, however, who has kept the dream alive. The Marshall County contingent punched its ticket to Conseco Fieldhouse by winning two of its last three games in the waning seconds, both on put-backs by Keel.
In the regional tournament played at Triton, Keel scored the winning basket on a buzzer-beating tip-in that capped a 51-49 semifinal victory over Morgan Township. The Trojans walloped No. 7 Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian 61-47 later in the day to advance to the semi-state round.
Then a week later, with Triton trailing 51-50 to No. 3 La fayette Central Catholic at the Lafayette Jefferson Semi-state, Keel sent the Trojans into the Class A state championship game with a rebounded put-back with three seconds remaining.
The trek to Indianapolis will be a familiar one for Triton's McIntyre family. Troy McIntyre is a 6-foot, 4-inch senior on the Trojans' roster, and the youngest of four Todd and Jami McInyre children. Troy 's trip to the Lafayette Jefferson Semi-state is the furthest any McInyre brother has advanced in the IHSAA post-season. That would include oldest brother Ben, a 1995 Triton alum and now a police officer, and Mason, the school's first-year athletic director and a member of the Trojans' 1999 sectional championship team.
It is sister Cassi, however, who has most of the bragging rights in the family, being a part of Triton's 2000 and 2001 girls' basketball state championship units, the first one claimed at Hinkle Fieldhouse and the second at Conseco.
In assessing this year's Class A State Finals combatants, both Lutheran and Triton boys' basketball teams figure to have at least a ghost of a chance to take home a title. Both will stride confidently into Conseco Fieldhouse with neither having lost to Class A opponents during the 2007-08 campaign.
Only one school, however, will exit with a state championship banner to hang in its rafters – either the Saints for display in their ghost-free Franklin Township gym, or Triton to be forever safeguarded most assuredly by the apparitions of Bourbon.
- FTONEWS.com -