Only Oregon-Davis in 2007 has pulled off feat

GREENCASTLE — Every year since 1977, the Indiana High School Athletic Association has crowned a high school girls basketball state champion.

With the introduction of class basketball in 1997-98 — and four state champs per year — 86 teams have claimed titles. In only one instance, however, did a girls’ state champ wear the crown in the same season that their boys basketball counterpart also won a state title.

With two more wins by the Mt. Vernon boys, MV will join Oregon-Davis as the only school to pull off the dual state-title feat.

In 2007, the Oregon-Davis girls defeated Oakland City Wood to win the Class A championship. Two weeks later, the boys from Oregon-Davis, located in northwest Indiana between Gary and South Bend, beat Barr-Reeve to win another piece of hardware for the school trophy case.

The Class 3A Mt. Vernon girls defeated Hamilton Heights March 2 to win the first state title in program history. Following its regional championship Saturday, the 3A No. 1-ranked MV boys will face No. 2 Greensburg this Saturday in a one-game semistate at Richmond with a chance to move on to the state finals.

Bedford North Lawrence nearly was the first school to win boys and girls basketball titles in the same year. The Stars sent their boys and girls to the state finals six times in five seasons:  boys in ’87, ’88 and ’90; girls in ’90, ’91 and ’92.

The BNL boys, led by some guy named Damon Bailey, won their lone title in 1990 over Concord at the Hoosier Dome, while the girls fell in the state finals that year to Huntington North. The BNL girls returned to win it all in 1991, and finished runner-up again in 1992.

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