The St. Peter’s Lutheran boys and girls basketball teams celebrate their Lutheran School state championships Sunday in Fort Wayne.
Submitted photo
St. Peter’s Lutheran’s eighth-grade girls basketball team made history on Sunday, then its boys team combined with the girls to make a little more history.
The girls team won its fourth Lutheran School Athletic Association state title, tying St. John Sauers from Seymour for the most in tournament history. A couple hours later, the St. Peter’s boys won their first title and made it the first school to win the boys and girls titles in the same year.
“It means a lot to us,” St. Peter’s boys coach Mark Christopher said. “We’ve been to the championship game two other times and gotten beat, and we’ve finished third two other times, so it’s good to finally get over the hump.”
Both the boys and girls teams were seeded No. 1 going into the state tournament. The girls beat Holy Cross from Fort Wayne 36-23 on Friday and Central of New Haven 34-18 on Saturday to reach the final.
“The first one, we came out really well in the first half and played a great game,” St. Peter’s girls coach Rick Patberg said. “The second game, they had a pretty decent team and we didn’t start off very well, but we had a good second half.”
In the final, St. Peter’s beat Lutheran Central from Brownstown 32-25, avenging a regular-season loss. St. Peter’s also beat Lutheran Central in Lutheran Invitational Tournament a week earlier.
After Lutheran Central had cut the St. Peter’s lead to four in the fourth quarter, Avery Johnson sank a 3-pointer, Kenna Conrad made reverse layup and Johnson converted a three-point play to give St. Peter’s (19-4) some breathing room.
“They were a very good basketball team,” Patberg said. “We got off to a great start that game. We did a nice job of hitting some big buckets late in the game and extending the lead.”
Johnson finished with 20 points in the final and was named the tournament’s MVP. Conrad also made the All-Tournament team.
“Audrey Nordman had a nice tournament, as well,” Patberg said. “We play seven girls, and all seven girls had a fabulous tournament, really. We played our best basketball of the season, in terms of a three-game stretch.”
The St. Peter’s boys (25-6) beat Calvary Lutheran from Southport 49-12 and Lutheran Central 51-45 on Saturday before topping St. John Sauers 39-23 in Sunday’s title game. St. Peters had beaten St. John Sauers 53-34 in championship game of LIT the previous weekend.
“We played two pretty good weekends,” Christopher said. “We had a local tournament last weekend that we played pretty well in, and we played well again this weekend.”
Drew Schiefer was named the tournament MVP. Caleb Ferguson also made All-Tournament team
“Drew got hurt in the championship game and only played a quarter-and-a-half, and we had a bunch of guys step up and fill in for him,” Christopher said. “He’s been our leading scorer all year and our team captain, so for the other guys to do that, that was huge for our team.”
Christopher has been coaching at St. Peters for 21 years and has been eighth-grade boys head coach for six years. Patberg, who has been undergoing chemotherapy for Multiple Myeloma throughout most of this season, has been coaching basketball in Columbus for three decades and is in his 11th year as St. Peter’s girls coach.
Both teams now are preparing for the Lutheran School Nationals, which are March 17-20 in Fort Wayne. The national tournament was canceled the past two years because of COVID.
Besides their tournament championship trophy, the St. Peter’s girls earned a little more hardware from the state tournament. They were awarded the sportsmanship trophy.
“It’s rare to happen that you win both, so it was nice that we were recognized with the sportsmanship trophy,” Patberg said. “It was a really nice weekend.”
