Columbus North’s Tucker Smith tosses a shot during the Conference Indiana track meet at Bloomington North High School Friday, April 29, 2022, in Bloomington. Smith won the shot put and set a state record with a throw of 72-feet, 1/2 inch.
The Republic file photo
The biggest news of the local sports scene in 2022 was dominated by high school athletes and teams.
Three local athletes won state championships and were considered the best in the state in their respective sports. Another relay team won a state title, and six other athletes or teams were state runner-up.
Here is a look at the top 10 local sports stories from 2022:
1. Columbus North’s Tucker Smith sets all-time state record, defends state title in shot put.
Smith not only became the first high school shot putter in Indiana to throw 70 feet, he shattered that with a 72-foot, 1/2-inch toss in the Conference Indiana meet at Bloomington North in late April. That throw was the best in the nation this season for high schoolers. In early June, he defended his state title in the shot and also finished second in the discus to lead the Bull Dogs to a third-place team finish, best in school history. Smith was named Indiana Gatorade Boys Track and Field Player of the Year for the second consecutive year. He now is competing at Oklahoma.
2. Columbus North’s Emily Moore wins gymnastics state tiles on beam, floor and all-around.
Moore, who had won her first state championship on the beam as a junior, defended that title and added ones on the floor and in the all-around competition as a senior in March. She also finished fifth on the vault and capped her illustrious career by leading the Bull Dogs to a fifth-place team finish.
3. Columbus North’s Ava Bunker wins medalist honors at Girls Golf State Finals.
Bunker became only the second freshman girls golfer to win state medalist honors. Her 2-under-par 142 in late September was nine shots clear of the field, tied for the fifth-best 36-hole score in the 50-year history of the state tournament and tied for the best in the nine years it’s been contested at Prairie View Golf Course in Carmel. Bunker made her high school debut just a week after winning this summer’s World Junior Championship at Pinehurst, North Carolina.
4. Columbus North sets state record in 4×800-meter relay, Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff is runner-up in 1,600.
Mateo Mendez, Clayton Guthrie, Matt Newell and Kilbarger-Stumpff won the state 4×800 race in a state-record 7 minutes, 37.90 seconds, setting the tone for what would be a third-place overall team finish for the Bull Dogs. Kilbarger-Stumpff, who had won the state cross-country title the previous fall and ran a 1:51 anchor split in the state track 4×800, came back to finish second in the 1,600 in 4:09.56.
5. Columbus North boys soccer finishes as Class 3A state runner-up.
The Bull Dogs made a big run to the state finals. After edging Columbus East 1-0 in the sectional opener, the Bull Dogs had to overcome one-goal deficits to beat Roncalli and Franklin in their final two sectional games. North then beat Center Grove 3-1 and routed Floyd Central 5-0 to win the regional before edging Cathedral 2-1 in the semistate. In their first state finals appearance since 2012, the Bull Dogs fell to Noblesville 1-0 in late October to finish the season 19-2-1.
6. IUPUC starts intercollegiate athletics.
IUPUC started intercollegiate athletics as a member of the NAIA and are joining the River States Conference. The Crimson Pride athletics program debuted with men’s and women’s cross-country this fall and will continue with baseball and softball in the spring and volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer in the fall of 2023.
7. Columbus East’s Koryn Greiwe, North’s Cooper Horn break longstanding school records.
Greiwe broke Maria Stack’s all-time school scoring record for East girls basketball in early January and finished her high school career with 1,656 points. Greiwe now is at Indiana Wesleyan, although she hasn’t played this year after tearing an ACL this summer.
Horn, a basketball standout playing in only his second year of football for the Bull Dogs, set school records with 71 receptions, 1,471 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns.
8. Rodeo returns to fair; full marathon returns after two-year absence.
For the first time in two decades, the Bartholomew County 4-H Fair hosted a rodeo. About 200 competitors from nine states performed in front of an estimated crowd of close to 3,000 fans in late June.
Meanwhile, the Mill Race Marathon conducted the full 26.2-mile race in late September. The event had been canceled in 2020 because of COVID and was limited to a half-marathon and 5K in 2021 because of a shortage of volunteers.
9. East’s Kade Law, North girls 4×800 relay team, North doubles team, North girls cross-country team finish state runner-up.
Law lost only three matches all season, and all came to the same wrestler. He went 41-3 with 20 pins. Of the three losses to Floyd Central’s J Conway, two came in overtime, including a 4-2 sudden victory decision in the 160-pound state final in February. Law now is wrestling at Purdue.
A week after setting the school record in the 4×800 relay in track, North’s Brianna Newell, Katherine Rumsey, Julie Klaus and Lily Baker shattered it by six seconds at the state meet in early June. Their 9:08.32 clocking was good enough for a second-place finish behind Valparaiso. Rumsey now is running at Purdue, while the other three are back for their senior years.
Anvay Atram and Amrit Kar helped lead the Bull Dogs to the state boys tennis team tournament. By virute of their undefeated record at No. 1 doubles, the juniors got a chance to play in the Boys Doubles State Finals the following week in October. Atram and Kar advanced all the way to the final before falling to North Central’s Akshay Guttikonda and Owen Larrimer 6-4, 6-4.
On the same day Noblesville edged North for the boys soccer state title, the Millers outscored the Bull Dogs for the girls cross-country state crown. North’s runner-up finish was led by senior Julia Kiesler, who placed fourth individually and later was named this year’s Indiana Miss Cross Country.
10. Columbus East baseball and Hauser softball make run to state’s final four.
The Olympians went 11-15-1 in the regular season before catching fire in the postseason. They posted one-run victories against Bloomington North and host Bloomington South in the sectional, upset Class 4A No. 2 Mooresville in extra innings in the regional semifinals and edged New Albany 3-2 in the regional final before falling to Cathedral in the semistate in June. Hauser blanked South Decatur 12-0 and edged host Rising Sun 4-3 in the sectional before routing Indianapolis Lutheran 17-2 in the regional. They beat Trinity Lutheran 4-1 in the semistate semifinals before falling to eventual Class A state champion Tecumseh in the semistate final to finish the season 24-5-1.
