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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Winamac is not a member of the new Indiana Northern State Conference, which begins next year, but their coaches might be spending a lot of time scouting their volleyball and basketball games based on the IHSAA sectional alignments for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years released Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Winamac’s new Class 1A football sectional could be looked at as a trip in time to Winamac’s roots in the Midwest Conference.
Football
Winamac is in Class 1A, Sectional 42 after a two-year stint in Class 2A that coincided with Josh Burgess’ first two years as coach.
Their new rivals include Carroll (Flora), who has won three straight sectionals and whose offensive coordinator is Winamac grad and former Winamac coach and athletic director John Hendryx, and Pioneer, a 12-time sectional champion who has beaten Winamac in eight of their last nine meetings.
Caston, another Hoosier North rival, is also in the sectional along with Frontier, North White, Taylor and Tri-County
Volleyball, girls basketball, boys basketball
Winamac was separated from all five of its volleyball and boys basketball sectional rivals and all four of its girls basketball sectional rivals.
Instead, it is now in Class 2A, Sectional 34 along with Bremen, South Bend Career Academy, Jimtown, Knox and LaVille.
Bremen, Jimtown, Knox and LaVille are four of the new schools in the new Indiana Northern State Conference. (Tippecanoe Valley and John Glenn, the other new INSC schools, are in Class 3A.)
Both the volleyball and boys basketball groupings feature schools trying to break long sectional droughts.
In volleyball, Winamac is the most recent sectional champion, having brought home a trophy in 2014. Knox’s last title came in 2010, Bremen’s last title came in 2003, LaVille’s last title came in 1973, and Jimtown and South Bend Career Academy have never won a sectional title.
In boys basketball, Winamac’s quest for its first sectional title since 2015 will come in a sectional in which no one has won a title since LaVille in the pandemic-shortened tournament of 2020. Jimtown and Knox have not won a sectional since 2004, Bremen has not won a sectional since 1999, and South Bend Career Academy has never won a sectional.
On the other hand, Sectional 34 will have a reigning regional champion in girls basketball in Bremen, who drops down from Class 3A based on enrollment, and a reigning sectional champion in LaVille. The Lady Warriors have also lost seven straight years in the regular season to Knox, who also drops down from Class 3A.
Boys soccer
Winamac keeps Argos, Caston, Culver and North Miami in their Class 1A sectional, but it changes numbers from Sectional 37 to Sectional 36.
The new team in the sectional is Lakeland Christian. They replace North White.
Lakeland Christian went 9-8-1 last year.
Argos has won 17 sectional titles in their history; the other five schools have won six sectionals combined.
Winamac sectional lineup (2024-25 and 2025-26)
Class 1A, Sectional 36 (boys soccer)
Argos, Caston, Culver, Lakeland Christian, North Miami, WINAMAC
Class 2A, Sectional 34 (volleyball, girls basketball, boys basketball)
Bremen, South Bend Career Academy, Jimtown, Knox, LaVille, WINAMAC
Class 1A, Sectional 42 (football)
Carroll (Flora), Caston, Frontier, North White, Pioneer, Taylor, Tri-County, WINAMAC
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