Eastern Hancock head coach Shari Doud talks with her team during halftime against Lapel, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023.
Tom Russo | Daily Reporter
With the annual random draw, the opening two weeks of pairings were announced Sunday for the 49th Annual IHSAA Girls Basketball State Tournament presented by the Indiana Fever and Indiana Pacers.
Sectional games are scheduled to begin Tuesday, Jan. 30, and run through Saturday, Feb. 3 with regionals on Saturday, Feb. 10.
For the second year, the regional is a single-game championship, and the semi-state a two-game affair with the winner advancing to the state championship game.
Two regional championship games will be played back-to-back at the same site with the winners finding out their next opponent and host site the following day. The semi-state games – scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 17 – will be randomly drawn and announced in a special pairings show.
The four state championship games that make up the State Finals will be played at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis on Saturday, Feb. 24.
Four Hancock County teams will participate in two sectionals.
Eastern Hancock, ranked No. 3 in the ICGSA Class 2A poll, plays in Class 2A Sectional 42, hosted by Indianapolis Scecina. Greenfield-Central, Mt. Vernon and New Palestine play in Class 4A Sectional 9, hosted by Pendleton Heights High School.
The Scecina Sectional has a five-team field with one game on Tuesday, Jan. 30 and semifinals to be played Friday, Feb. 2. All championship games are Saturday, Feb. 3.
Eastern Hancock (19-1) is the defending sectional champion and will play in the first of two semifinal games on Feb. 2. The Royals take on Triton Central (16-5).
The tournament opens with host Scecina (6-14) playing Indianapolis Riverside (3-11). Irvington Prep (2-11) plays the Scecina-Riverside winner in the second semifinal game.
The Pendleton Heights Sectional gets underway Tuesday, Jan. 30 with one game. Three-time defending sectional champion Mt. Vernon (8-13) opens against Anderson (8-13). On Wednesday, Jan. 31, in a rematch of a Dec. 10 contest won by Greenfield-Central in overtime, Greenfield-Central (15-6) takes on New Palestine (11-9). In a second quarterfinal game on Wednesday, host Pendleton Heights (14-7) will play Muncie Central (1-18).
In the first of two semifinal games on Friday, Feb. 2, Richmond (11-10) plays the Mt. Vernon/Anderson winner. The second game will be a matchup of Wednesday’s winners.
The Pendleton Heights Sectional winner will play the Indianapolis Cathedral Sectional winner for the Regional 6 Championship at a site to be determined. The Scecina Sectional winner will face the South Putnam Sectional winner on the Regional 21 Championship, also at a yet to be determined location.
To conduct the random drawing for the girls basketball state tournament, the IHSAA places ping-pong balls representing each school in each sectional into a lottery-style air mix machine. A motorized fan in the bottom of the machine blows the balls around the inside of the transparent container and air then forces each ball up through a tube in random order. For example, the first ball retrieved from the machine will be the visiting team in game one with the second ball representing the home team in game one. The third ball to come out is the visitor in game two and the fourth ball the home team in game two. That same method is followed through all 64 sectionals and 16 regionals.
