By Rich Torres, Special to IHSAA.org
The prognosticators were right.
Ranked first and second, respectively, in the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association’s Preseason Top 20 this past November, top-ranked Fishers (30-0) and eighth-ranked Jeffersonville (23-5) will finally meet on Saturday inside Gainbridge Fieldhouse to settle the Class 4A state championship.
While this weekend’s 115th Annual Indiana High School Athletic Association State Finals marks their first-ever official meeting – regardless of regular season or state tournament – both schools are more than familiar with one another.
From AAU affiliations to star power on both sides, Saturday’s showdown in downtown Indianapolis seemed inevitable.
“This is how it’s supposed to be. Us against them. It’s the last team to beat us. They beat us this past summer. This is what it was always going to be, and this is what we want it to be,” Fishers coach Garrett Winegar remarked on Saturday’s upcoming 8:15 p.m. tip-off. “They’re a great team. They’re very well coached, and we know it’s going to be a challenge, but we don’t want the easy way out. This is what we want.”
The defending state champion Fishers Tigers haven’t lost an in-school game since Jan. 27, 2024, at Carmel High School and have rolled to 43 consecutive wins dating back to last year’s title run.
Another victory will not only further cement their historic single-season wins total but would make them the sixth 4A undefeated state champion – first since Ben Davis went 33-0 in 2022-23 – and 15th overall in state tournament history.
“It’ll be history pretty much,” said Fishers senior JonAnthony Hall, a Stanford football recruit. “It’s just a really unique kind of experience, and I think it’s something that’s super hard to come by, so if we’re able to do that, it’ll be amazing.”
To achieve the feat, the Tigers will need to avenge that quiet offseason loss, which they suffered during the Charlie Hughes Shootout showcase in Hamilton County this past June.
The Tigers and Red Devils nearly met again during the Henry Community Health Hall of Fame Classic championship game inside New Castle Fieldhouse in December, but Jeffersonville lost to No. 2 Greenfield-Central, 69-66, in the semifinals, a team it also beat this past summer.
However, 6-foot-8 senior Tre Singleton, a Northwestern commit averaging 17.9 points per game, was just coming back from an offseason broken ankle.
Yet, as he admits, after recovering for three months and missing Jeffersonville’s first seven games to start the year, he’s back at roughly “90 percent.”
Jeffersonville has won 17 games in a row with Singleton back and behind Wright State commit Michael Cooper’s 19.1 ppg, while capturing its first semi-state title since 1995.
The Red Devils are competing in the State Finals for the first time since 1995. The program won the single-class title in 1993 with current head coach Sherron Wilkerson in the starting five during Jeffersonville’s back-to-back state runs in 1992 and 1993.
Wilkerson was named a 1993 McDonald’s All American and the 1993 Indiana Gatorade Player of the Year. If Wilkerson leads the Red Devils to a state title, he will become the sixth person to win a state championship as both a player and a coach and the 25th to guide his alma mater to the crown.
“It’s a dream come true. Obviously, as a player it’s always on the top of the list to be able to get here, particularly in the state of Indiana, but as a coach it’s a little different feeling because you shoulder all the responsibilities, if you will. Specifically with the preparation, so it’s very fulfilling,” Wilkerson said.
“It’s one thing to put it into words, but no matter how you dress it, I’m not sure you can really feel the feeling unless you experience it. That’s the thing we told these guys. We wanted so badly to get here, so they could feel how it feels. It’s one thing to explain it. One thing to share it, and one thing to describe it, but to fully understand it, I think you have to feel what comes along with it. I’m so happy these guys get to feel it.”
Pleasantries aside, both teams want to experience victory.
In 2023-24, the Tigers rewrote program history by finishing 29-1 en route to claiming their first-ever sectional, regional, semi-state, and state championship.
This year, the Tigers continue to build on their dominance with consecutive undefeated Hoosier Crossroads Conference titles – fourth championship in five seasons – and program single-season records in assists, 3-pointers made, field goals made and steals, among several new individual season and career standards.
“We felt like we had a point to prove our first time coming here, but this time for sure, we know what to do. We’ve been here before, so let’s go get it again and enjoy this last time playing together as five seniors,” said Fishers senior Justin Kirby, a Miami (Ohio) commit.
“No one cares who scores. We only want to win. That’s the problem with some other teams that I’ve seen in the past, everyone is concerned with how they can be selfishly. This team, I can confidently say, nobody cares who scores. Nobody cares what happens because we’re all winning as a team.”
The statistics echo Fishers’ chemistry with junior Jason Gardner Jr. averaging 14.6 ppg, sophomore Cooper Zachary dishing out 5.1 assists per game while scoring 11.5 ppg and Hall providing 10.2 ppg.
Senior Nathan Baker, a 6-7 Taylor commit, contributes 7.7 ppg, and senior Millen McCartney, an Indiana Wesleyan recruit, averages 9.3 ppg. Kirby is second-best at 12.9 ppg, while often serving as the team’s sixth man, and senior Logan Sigler, who is committed to DePauw, is chipping in 4.7 ppg.
“Coach Winegar and his staff have set the standard for the state of Indiana. It’s an honor to have an opportunity to chase that standard,” Wilkerson said. “Whether we eclipse that standard or not, is yet to be seen but just to have that opportunity to be mentioned in the category with coach Winegar, his staff and their program is a true honor.”
Winegar, a reserve on Rochester’s 2009 Class 3A state runner-up team, served as an assistant coach and later as head coach at Warren Central prior to taking over at Fishers in 2020-21.
Winegar worked under coach Criss Beyers when his squad won the 4A title in 2018 with a perfect 32-0 record.
As a head coach, Winegar owns a record of 126-29, and his Tigers are riding the fifth-longest winning streak in state history.
“This group of seniors, I knew a lot of them when they were in the sixth grade. When I was coaching at Warren, I was training some of these guys on their AAU teams, then by happenstance I ended up taking a job in Fishers where they all lived. We have a special bond that in all honesty, I won’t have with another team again just because of how long I’ve been around them,” Winegar said.
“Honestly, last year, I think we did it a year early, but I did believe this year, these seniors would be in this position. It’s really about wanting to finish it with them. It’s the relationships we built with these players. I’m going to be able to coach for a long time, so if we win or lose it doesn’t really impact my career, but I want to experience it with these guys as seniors. That’s all that matters to me.”