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Boys draw: Rochester draws No. 9 Culver Academy, Valley gets Wabash
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
The two ranked girls soccer teams in Class 1A, Sectional 35 drew each other in the first round.
Meanwhile, the Rochester and Tippecanoe Valley boys soccer teams are in opposite halves of the Class 2A, Sectional 22 bracket, but the three ranked teams are all in Rochester’s half.
Those were among the revelations in the IHSAA girls and boys soccer draws, which were held Sunday.
Sectionals will be held Oct. 3-8. Boys regional semifinals will be held Oct. 12, and girls regional semifinals will be Oct. 13.
Regional finals will be held Oct. 15, semistates will be held at Kokomo and Chesterton on Oct. 22, and the IHSAA state finals will be held at the Michael Carroll Track & Soccer Stadium on the IUPUI campus in Indianapolis on Oct. 28-29.
Sectional tickets are $7 per session or $15 for an all-sectional ticket.
GIRLS
Class 1A, Sectional 35: Rochester, Argos, Culver
No. 12 Argos and No. 14 Trinity Greenlawn are the only ranked teams in Sectional 35, which Argos will host.
They played Aug. 25 at Eugene Snyder Field, and Trinity Greenlawn rallied with two goals in the final 10 minutes for a 2-1 win.
The rematch will be Oct. 4 in the sectional quarterfinals. Argos has won four straight sectional titles, and Trinity Greenlawn won their first sectional title in school history last year. Now in the same sectional, they were paired off immediately.
The Trinity Greenlawn-Argos winner will play the Bremen-Culver in the semifinals. Culver is 9-2-1, but one of their losses was a 3-1 loss to Bremen on Aug. 22.
In the other half of the draw, Rochester (5-5-1) and LaVille (3-7-3) received byes and will play each other. The Lady Zs and Lady Lancers will not meet in the regular season. Their most recent meeting was in the 2019 sectional semifinals at Argos, and LaVille won 2-0.
Class 2A, Sectional 22: Tippecanoe Valley
Back in action last week after a hiatus due to a lack of numbers, Valley received a bye in Class 2A, Sectional 22 at Culver Academy.
The Lady Vikings will play Fort Wayne Concordia in the semifinals. Fort Wayne Concordia is 5-7 and beat Valley 8-0 in last year’s sectional in their first ever meeting.
No. 5 Fort Wayne Dwenger and No. 8 Leo, the two ranked teams in the sectional, could meet in the semifinals. First, Dwenger will have to knock off Culver Academy, and Leo will have to beat Garrett.
Leo is the defending regional champion.
BOYS
Class 2A, Sectional 22: Rochester, Tippecanoe Valley
Coach Eric Backus’ Zebras drew No. 9 Culver Academy in the Class 2A, Sectional 22 quarterfinals at Wabash.
Culver Academy is 7-3-1 with six shutout wins and is led by Oscar Cano’s 13 goals.
Rochester is 3-11-1. The Zebras won back-to-back Class 1A sectional titles in 2015-16, but they have not won a postseason game since the state tournament was expanded to three classes in 2017 and the Zebras were moved to Class 2A.
The Rochester-Culver Academy winner will play the Fort Wayne Dwenger-Fort Wayne Concordia winner in the semifinals.
No. 10 Dwenger defeated No. 13 Concordia 2-0 in their regular season meeting on Sept. 6.
As for Valley, they drew the host Apaches in the quarterfinals. This will be a rematch of an Aug. 23 game played at Valley and won by Wabash 3-2. Christian Ramirez and Gio Arriaga scored for Valley in the previous meeting.
The Valley-Wabash winner will play Manchester in the semifinals. The Squires (11-2-1), who have wins over both Wabash and Valley, received a bye.
Valley has never won a boys soccer sectional title.
Class 1A, Sectional 37: Argos, Caston, Culver
After a one-year stay in Class 2A due to the IHSAA Success Factor, Argos is back in Class 1A and hosting Sectional 37 at Eugene Snyder Field.
The Dragons (2-12) received a bye and will face Winamac in a semifinal on Oct. 5. Winamac is 3-11 and will play Argos for the first time since a 7-0 loss to the Dragons in the 2020 sectional final.
Winamac’s only sectional title came in 2001.
In the other half of the draw, Culver drew Caston, and North White drew North Miami.
Caston, who won their first sectional title in school history last year, lost to Culver 2-1 on Sept. 19 in their regular season meeting.
North White and North Miami played to a 2-2 tie on Sept. 3. North White is ranked No. 16 despite a losing record (5-7-1). North White is 0-1-1 against teams in the sectional, including an 8-4 loss to Caston on Sept. 6.
Argos won 10 consecutive Class 1A sectionals from 2011-20. They have not lost a Class 1A sectional game since the state tournament expanded to multiple classes in 2011.
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