With a packed gym on Tuesday night, the Owls faced their toughest opponent of the season, the Jeffersonville Red Devils. Seymour has been great the entire season, entering the matchup with an 18-4 record. On the other side, the Jeffersonville Red Devils entered the matchup with a 15-7 record.

Jeffersonville was easily the favorite to win this game even though the Owls got the better of them earlier in the season 40-39 with a buzzer-beater shot by Bret Perry. The Red Devils came out of the gates fast and didn’t even give Seymour a chance to make this a close game. After Jaylan Johnson scored the first points of the game, this was looking like it could be a thriller. Seymour’s defense has been suffocating all season long, but Jeffersonville’s offense has been almost perfect when healthy.

But this game was the opposite of a “thriller.” After going down 2-0, Jeffersonville pushed the 1st quarter lead to 11-4. The Owls had come to life in the 2nd quarter, and after a somewhat even 2nd quarter, the Red Devils led 24-16 at halftime.

I don’t know what Jeffersonville’s coach said at halftime, but it worked. The Red Devils came out on a 10-0 run to start the 3rd quarter, and the game was never close the rest of the way. Jeffersonville won the game 45-27, clinching a sectionals matchup vs the Floyd Central Highlanders.

The Red Devils won this game for a few reasons, but a “BIG” reason why was 6’8″ Tre Singleton who led the game with 19 points. Seymour was paying a lot of attention to Singleton, and that led to a lot of opportunities for the Red Devil guards. 6’3″ guard Michael Cooper took advantage of Seymour’s defense, scoring 12 points.

Seymour was led by Jaylan Johnson who scored 11 points, Brady Harpe with 5 points, and Ethan Silcox with 5 points. The Owls could never get their offense going, ending the game with 27 points. Seymour’s 27 points is the lowest-scoring performance on the season. When you play great defense sometimes offense can be a problem, and that was the story against Jeff.

The Owls finished their season with an 18-5 record, their best since the 2004-05 season. Seymour has a lot to be proud of, including their first-ever HHC Conference Championship. The Owls will return a lot of their players next season and will be looking to win the HHC Championship for the 2nd year in a row. Congratulations to Seymour for a great season.

IHSAA Sectionals Draw:

The IHSAA has a serious problem, their method of selecting the Sectional matchups is outdated and unfair. I’m not trying to sound mad after a bad loss (I’m a little mad), but the Sectionals draw has been a problem for years now. Seymour and Jeffersonville tied for 1st place in the HHC but because of the unfair sectional draw, they both had to play each other in the opening game. But for some teams, it can be great, including Floyd Central and Jennings County who both finished 5th in the HHC and both got a first-round sectional bye.

Seymour got a lucky draw last season, but maybe their luck just ran out. This has to be fixed, and we need it soon. Here are some of my proposals to the IHSAA.

Proposals- I think that the sectionals need seeding based on your regular season record, if it’s just a random draw then why would you even need to play the regular season? Teams could go 18-0 and have to play a 17-1 team in the first round of sectionals, while the 0-18 and 1-17 teams could get the first-round bye. And if two teams have the same conference record, the decider would be their head-to-head matchup from earlier in the season.

Another rule I would like the IHSAA to add would be a shot clock. Teams like Seymour have taken advantage of no-shot clock, and it makes games really slow and boring. If we added a 30 or 24-second shot clock the game would be sped up and much more entertaining. I think the IHSAA should hire me, we would make great rules.

Owls Will