NEW PALESTINE — On a Thursday night in mid- January, as two teams traded big shots down the stretch like heavyweight boxers, the seeds for the culmination of New Palestine’s basketball season were sown.
The final shot hit the rim, with the Hoosier Heritage Conference title hanging tantalizingly in the balance for both New Palestine and Pendleton Heights, before rolling off the other side and leaving New Palestine just short.
While the visiting Arabians celebrated, New Palestine coach Sarah Gizzi challenged her team, encouraged her players to rise up from defeat. It’s that kind of leadership that has earned her the Dragons’ first-year coach the title of Daily Reporter Hancock County Coach of the Year for girls basketball. She received every possible vote from a panel comprised of Hancock County coaches and media.
That game back in January was a missed opportunity, as the Dragons were seeking their first HHC title since 1994, back in a time when Gizzi was a standout player for the team.
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But a much bigger opportunity awaited, and the Dragons seized it. Two weeks later, they rolled over Connersville, 53-32, then rallied from a six-point halftime deficit to beat Greenfield-Central, 43-32, then avenged an earlier loss to Mt. Vernon with a 45-39 score. In each, the Dragons seized control of the game in the third quarter and never relinquished it, earning the right to climb the ladder as sectional champions.
“I really think losing that conference championship game to Pendleton was a really good learning experience. We talked a lot about a missed opportunity, and that became a theme for the rest of the season,” Gizzi said. “We had injuries, and girls were coming back. We felt we were going to be really strong going into the sectional.”
Gizzi inherited a team that had a strong foundation, going 16-7 and 17-7 the last two seasons under Brian Kehrt’s tutelage, but the Dragons reached new heights this year. They began the season with nine straight wins, a school record to start a year. They won 18 games — tying for the second-most in school history. And they won the program’s first sectional title in 14 years before taking No. 1 Pike to the wire in a 42-34 regional loss.
“We challenged them to play at a greater level of intensity, and they met the challenge,” Gizzi said. “Whether you shoot well and do the Xs and Os and execute is one thing, but if you can play hard, get every 50/50 ball, get every rebound, you’re going to win a lot of games and have a lot of fun. We challenged them to do that.”
The gym is a natural spot for Gizzi, who has been around basketball her entire life. Her parents — Bruce and Martha Haynes — coached basketball and other sports, with Bruce spending four seasons as the New Palestine boys coach in the 1990s, and joining Sarah on the bench as an assistant this year. Her older brother, Noah Haynes, led the state in scoring for Frontier in 1989 and later served a stint as the head boys coach at Brebeuf Jesuit. Her husband, Mike Gizzi, is a former college and professional player. With several family members, including Sarah and Mike’s three children, playing basketball, nearly all of the Haynes/Gizzi family is coaching.
“Both of my parents always coached,” Gizzi said. “They coached my teams sometimes growing up and sometimes not, but they were always so ingrained in whatever community we lived in. I watched my brother before me, and he was a really good player. I married a player. I feel like I’ve been watching really important, tough games since I was born. I felt really pulled toward (coaching), even though it hadn’t been my original goal to be a varsity coach.
“What else do we do in our family is play basketball? Our kids are all playing basketball, and the fact that my dad was able to help me, and to be at my alma mater and having a program on the upswing was attractive. I inherited a group that was really building and growing, and I want see if we can keep it there as long as we can.”
Her support comes from a lot of places — her family, her college teammates and coaches and from within NP itself. Sarah was a standout player at New Palestine from 1990-94, where she still holds the school’s career (1,172), season (468) and game (36) scoring records, and went on to play at LaSalle University in Philadelphia. She played for two sectional championship teams at NP and now has coached one.
“Sarah did an outstanding job of adjusting to the nuances of being a head coach,” said NP athletic director Allen Cooper, who was also Gizzi’s high school coach. “She represented our athletic department with the same high standards as a coach like she did as a player.”
Her playing experience helps her relate to the players.
“She’s kind of like a motherly figure,” said NP junior Leah Seib, who was the team’s leading scorer this past season. “She knew how we felt, having been in our shoes.”
Gizzi was no stranger to the Dragons team she was inheriting. She had coached every player on the roster except one as a coach at Doe Creek Middle School. Prior to that, she was an assistant coach at NPHS.
With the Dragons graduating just one senior — Emma Grable — they’re looking forward to making another run next season.
“I knew that the current group of players are just a really fun group of girls who really care about doing well,” Gizzi said. “It’s a lot of great girls who play hard, they want to win, they want to compete, they’re great students, they have great families. That’s, for me, a huge reason I even wanted the job in the first place. It turned out to be what I was hoping it would be — a really great experience.”
