ST. LEON — Greenfield-Central’s seniors are shooting for a perfect 4-for-4.
With Wednesday’s 4-0 shutout of East Central in a semifinal match of Class 3A Sectional 12 at East Central High School’s Trojan Pitch, the Cougars will play in a sectional title game for the fourth straight time.
They’ve been successful in the last three. On Saturday, at 2 p.m., Greenfield-Central will take on Hancock County and Hoosier Heritage Conference rival Mt. Vernon for a chance to make it four in a row.
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“It means a lot to the team,” senior back Brantley Kuntz said. “We’ve been building off each year, working as one to achieve this goal. To cap out with four straight sectional championships would be over the top.”
Kuntz was on the defensive side that was part of the Cougars ninth shutout of the season. They improved to 17-1 overall with the win. East Central finishes its season 10-6-2.
Cougars senior Zack Bell was part of all the scoring. He assisted on both of Greenfield-Central’s first-half goals and scored both of the second-half tallies. In doing so, he set a new school single-season record for points with 75.
“It shows a lot about this program. It takes a whole team and everyone coming together,” Bell said of the four straight berths into the sectional finale. “Our freshman year we started the family tradition. We all come together and every year. It doesn’t matter who is on the field or who is playing with each other. It doesn’t matter. We’re family and we stick together and play hard, a team effort all the way through.”
Seniors scored all four goals on Wednesday.
Senior Jordan Phillips got the Cougars on the board first with 15:37 left in the first half. Bell and sophomore John Halvorsen had the assists. Just a few moments later, at the 12:43 mark, senior Tyler Murphy got the second goal, again assisted by Bell.
Murphy gave it right back to Bell for the opening score of the second half. The school-record holder found the back of the net with 35:35 left in the contest. Senior Caleb Mundell had an assist on Bell’s last goal, which came with only 3:06 left in the contest. It was Mundell’s 23rd assist of the season. Bell upped his goal total to 32.
“I think we came out a little bit slow. We needed to pick up the pace,” Bell said. “We knew what we needed to do at halftime. We were still up 2-0, but we knew we weren’t controlling as much as we wanted.
“We talked even before the coaches came over (at halftime) and talked about fixing the little things. Once we fixed those little things all the big things started happening.”
Wednesday’s match was a rematch of last year’s sectional championship contest, won by the Cougars, 4-1. Greenfield-Central also beat East Central 2-0 during the regular season. In 2017, the Cougars beat Shelbyville 4-1 to win the sectional title. In 2016, playing in Class 2A Sectional 23, the Cougars beat Mt. Vernon in a penalty-kick shootout.
