Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Luers basketball nets a win
The Bishop Luers boys basketball team present the trophy for the IHSAA Class 2-A state championship to Bishop Luers Principal Mary Keefer during a March 24 pep assembly at the school. Bishop Luers defeated Winchester, 69-67, in the March 22 game in Indianapolis. (Photo by Don Clemmer)
By Don Clemmer
FORT WAYNE — Bishop Luers High School celebrated its boys basketball team’s first state championship victory with a pep assembly March 24.
The teams’s 69-67 win over Winchester on March 22 prompted Bishop John M. D’Arcy to say at the Monday afternoon assembly, “I never doubted we would win.” Bishop D’Arcy noted that Luers trailed most of the game but never gave up. “That’s the history of this team all year long. They always thought they could win. That’s a credit to them and to their coach.”
“This has been quite a journey,” Bishop Luers coach James Blackmon said at the assembly, thanking the entire Luers community for their support. He said he felt relief that the season was over and that the teams had accomplished their goal of winning the state title.
Coach Blackmon said the team was able to achieve this goal by choosing to invest a lot of hard work from the beginning of the season.
“With everything we do in life, whatever choices you make,” he said, “if you give it 100 percent, good things are going to happen. And that’s the credit to this ball club here.”
Coach Blackmon thanked Bishop Luers Principal Mary Keefer, referring to her as the team’s number one fan, and said that the real credit for the season goes to the members of the boys basketball team for pulling together all of their unique talents and roles to become a unified and successful team.
After Coach Blackmon’s remarks and the presentation of medals to the team, managers and assistant coaches, Bishop Luers Athletic Director Matt Lindsay presented one of the medals to the team’s “holiest fan,” Bishop D’Arcy.
The lone senior of the team, Steve Williamson, spoke at the end of the presentation, thanking the student body, parents and his teammates in an emotional show of gratitude.
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