The ‘second season’ for Indiana high school boys’ basketball teams begins tonight with sectional tournaments throughout the state.

Jackson County’s three class 1A teams will travel to New Washington with Crothersville and Trinity Lutheran playing tonight while Medora drew a bye and will play Friday night.

Something is going to have to give in the first game tonight when Crothersville (6-17) plays New Washington (4-18) at 6 o’clock.

Crothersville has lost five straight, including a 67-50 battle at Trimble County., Ky. Friday night. New Washington enters with a four-game win streak.

One of the Mustangs’ wins came Dec. 16 at Crothersville by a 53-44 score in a Southern Athletic Conference game.

Tigers Coach Bryant Layman spoke about what the team must do this time against New Washington.

“We need to rebound a lot better than we did the first time,” he said. “We’ve got to get into our transition and run, and we’ve just got to rotate better on defense. That has been our Achilles heel and it has cost us some games.”

Layman said he will have the Tigers mix things up on defense in order to try and contain Mason Arthur. He scored 19 against the Tigers in their earlier meeting.

“He is a tough match-up for us. He is probably the best shooter in the sectional,” Layman said. “We did a really good job of slowing him down. He’s going to get his points. We’ve got to make sure we hold the others down.”

Beau Napier leads the Tigers in scoring at 12.3 points per game and Tymir Cromwell is next at 10.8. Cromwell scored 22 against the Mustangs in the earlier game.

The second game tonight finds Trinity (11-11) facing Shawe Memorial (9-14). The Cougars claimed a 71-54 win over the Hilltoppers at Madison on Feb. 3.

This will be the first boys sectional for Cougars Coach Mike Lang after coaching the Trinity girls for the past 12 years.

He said he is looking forward to his first boys’ sectional.

“Our goals coming into this year were if we could get to double digits in wins, and have a chance to win the sectional, and we checked a lot of boxes off in our first year and here we are. I think we have a lot of confidence going in.”

Lang said he wants the Cougars to stay focused on Shawe and not look ahead.

“We’ve got to stay focused and not think back to the first game,” he said. “It’s a brand new season, it’s a brand new game and we’re going to have to keep our focus on stopping Philip Kahn, and not let the other guys becomes heroes and beat us that night, so it’s going to take a defensive effort that’s got to get done on the defensive end.”

Kahn is Shawe’s all-time leading scorer and is averaging 22.9 points per game this season. The Hilltoppers also have Braiden Smith averaging 16.5 points per game.

Kahn is a guard, and Lang recalled his team held Kahn to 14 points in the earlier game.

“We’ll play man and we’ll really work the ‘helpside’ in the gaps,” Lang said.

Hudson Lang tops Trinity in scoring at 14.8 points per game, and is followed by Reed Mellencamp at 11.9 and Kowan Gross at 10.3.

Trinity won its final game of the regular season, 65-62 at Austin Friday night and is 11-11, while Shawe is 10-14.

“I think we’ve done a good job keeping the turnovers down here of late,” Coach Lang said. “We want to play in transition. In the third quarter against Christian Academy we got going in transition and we saw the shots start to fall.

“I really don’t want to make it a half-court game, but if we do we’ve got to be patient, take the right shots and play it inside-out. I think we’re a quicker team, and we may even be a stronger team.”

Medora Coach Mark Morin will be scouting the Trinity-Shawe game in preparation for the second game Friday night.

Rising Sun (6-17) will play the Crothersville-New Washington winner at 6 p.m. Friday, and Medora will play either Trinity or Shawe.

Medora lost to Shawe 51-33 early in the season and did not play Trinity. Medora defeated Eminence 58-42 in its final game of the regular season Saturday night and is 9-12.

Morin is hoping his team can play its best game of the season Friday night.

“I don’t feel like we’ve put it all together yet,” he said. “We’re running out of time, but if we happen to do that I think we can at least compete with them. We’ve done better the second half of the year with the turnovers. We just need to run our stuff, make shots and keep them off the offensive boards.”

Morin just wants the Hornets to play their game.

“I’m more worried about us than who we play. If we just come out and play our game I think we can compete,” he said. “I think we can play man (Friday night). We’ll probably mix it up. We’ve got to come out with some confidence and feel like we can compete with them.”

Hudson Johnson tops Medora in scoring at 11.2 PPG, Damian Salas is averaging 10.9 and Jaxon Nugen 10.6.

Morin thinks the sectional is wide open.

“I feel like anybody can beat anybody in the sectional.”

Rising Sun is 4-1 against the other five sectional teams.