By Rob Brown
For the Daily Journal
INDIANAPOLIS
In Saturday night’s noisiest southside building, Greenwood Christian senior Max Booher was the portrait of calm, drilling two free throws with 17 seconds left to put his team up three. The Cougar defense forced a contested 3-pointer from Indianapolis Lutheran’s L.J. Ward in the waning seconds, and when it fell short at the buzzer, GCA had secured a Class A sectional title, beating the host Saints 49-46.
“We’ve had the same group of guys for three years now and we’ve lost to them in the championship two years in a row,” Booher said, “but we knew we were going to hit our free throws and win, and it came down to that.”
Greenwood Christian (17-7) advances to a regional game next Saturday against Oldenburg Academy (13-11) in Martinsville.
The win gives the Cougars their first sectional title since 2020 and also erases much of the disappointment of seeing their previous two seasons end in sectional final losses on the Saints’ home floor.
“We’ve had guys working for this for three years and to get back here for the third year in a row, and for this group to have this moment as a team, it’s awesome,” GCA coach Jackson Williams said.
Booher scored seven of his 17 points in the final quarter. He shared team scoring honors with junior Evan McIntire, who returned for Friday’s semifinal after missing 17 games with a broken ankle and connected on five of Greenwood Christian’s eight 3-pointers in the title game. Junior Noah Reed added nine points.
The game, played before a standing-room-only crowd at Lutheran, was tight from the outset.
The Saints led 12-10 after one quarter, hitting all four of their field goals from 3-point range, and expanded their lead to 17-11 on a T.J. Clark three-point play with 5:35 left in the half. Greenwood Christian responded with a 12-0 run that featured 3-pointers from juniors McIntire and Alieu Ceesay. McIntire hit one more triple before the half ended, and the Cougars led by five (26-21) at the break.
The game featured 11 lead changes and two ties, but the Cougars grabbed the lead for good at 35-33 on senior Jordan Taulman’s 3-pointer with 28 seconds left in the third quarter, his only points of the game. GCA led by seven, 44-37, with 3:20 left before hanging on for the win in the closing seconds.
“We wanted this to be more of a halfcourt game and we put up a number, that we wanted it under 50 … and oh man, 49-46, these kids did an awesome job,” Williams said.
