It’s almost becoming an unfortunate annual ritual.
A school’s closing motivates a boys basketball team in the postseason. After Elmhurst went through the same scenario a year ago in reaching the Class 3A semistate, Harding has put together a late-season run to extend its last season.
Elmhurst closed its doors last spring, and while Harding isn’t completely closing, the school in its present form with its outstanding basketball tradition appears to soon be a thing of the past.
In October, the East Allen County Schools board approved a redesign plan that will close Harding as a high school at the end of the school year and reopen as a magnet school called the Paul Harding College and Career Academy in 2012. Current students and eighth-graders who would have attended Harding will be bused to the district’s four other high schools next fall.
“We haven’t mentioned one thing about the school closing,” Harding coach Al Gooden said. “It is there because it is going through the school, but in practice we don’t even talk about it. There’s no way to get away from it, but in practice they just come to play basketball, which is what they like to do.”
This is no ordinary boys basketball program. The Hawks have the best postseason tradition over the past decade than any program around. Harding has been to the state finals – in either 3A or 2A – five times in the last 10 years, with a 2001 2A state championship. Gooden is 320-179 in 21 years at the school.
“We have to go out here and play hard; it is Harding’s last year,” senior guard Mike Stevenson said. “There’s not going to be a next year. We are definitely playing for the school, as well as playing just because it is basketball.”
There are some players, like sophomore star forward V.J. Beachem, who will be playing basketball for another school next season. But the highly recruited Beachem is living in the moment.
“This is just more than Harding and more than basketball,” Beachem said. “This is for an entire community.”
Beachem said he doesn’t know where he will be suiting up next season but would like to go and play wherever Gooden winds up, which the veteran coach hasn’t even thought about yet.
The sense of urgency seemed to hit the Hawks (9-10) eight games ago in a 74-64 loss to SAC champion Bishop Luers. Since then the Hawks have won six of their last seven games, including twice in last week’s New Haven Sectional by double figures over Bishop Dwenger and Leo.
“Everybody just knows it is time to get down and get serious,” Stevenson said of the playoffs. “It is time to play and win or go home, and everybody starts to think about that. It just comes natural to everybody.”
No matter what the regular-season record might be, Harding and postseason success are synonymous. The Hawks have won six sectional titles since 2005.
“Harding has had some good postseasons, and we want to keep that success there, and that tradition,” Gooden said. “There’s a lot wearing on their minds. About five or six games ago, we started to settle down.”
Harding will play in the Blackford Regional on Saturday against Norwell (16-6) and with a win would face either Columbia City (17-5) or Delta (16-7) in the final.
“Although their record is not a typical Harding record, they play an extremely demanding schedule and in the SAC,” Columbia City coach Chris Benedict said. “No one will overlook them.
