While the seniors on the Brownstown Central boys’ basketball team have received a lot of the credit for the outstanding season, three underclassmen have filled key roles this season.

Sophomore Micah Sheffer and juniors Chace Coomer and Colby Hall have made major contributions.

They will be at Gainbridge Field House, Indianapolis, on March 30 to try to help the Braves bring home the Class 2A championship when they play Wapahani. The game will start at 12:45 p.m.

After winning the Southport Semistate, Sheffer spoke on the feeling of going to the state final.

“It’s amazing. It’s everything I’ve dreamed about since I was little,” Sheffer said. “All the hours we’ve put in. We put a great schedule together. All of our summer games were like our first game, and all our season games were like our second one. It was just a lot of little things throughout the whole year, and we just kind of clicked and we pulled out the win (over Parke Heritage).”

He said the Braves had to overcome a lot of adversity to have their outstanding season. Sheffer missed some games with a back injury, Jack Benter had a calf injury, and Colby Hall missed some games because of an ankle injury, plus some players missed games due to sickness.

“I really think it helped us out because it shows we are a great basketball team, and we can out together five guys on the floor,” Sheffer said. “Our bench is that deep that we can put five guys out there and we’re going to have success.

“I think our bench did a great job (at Southport). They came out with great energy. They brought to the table what they needed to do to get the win tonight”

Sheffer recalled playing a game at Gainbridge when he was little.

“It’s always been a dream to go back for a state championship,” he said.

The Braves are 27-4 and have won 18 straight games. Wapahani is 26-2 with losses to Yorktown and Delta, both Class 3A teams.

“We’ve got one more 32-minute game left in our season so we might as well go out and play the best we can,” Sheffer said.

Hall and Coomer both played at Scottsburg until coming to Brownstown prior to their sophomore seasons. Scottsburg will play South Bend St. Joseph’s at 6 p.m. on March 30 for the 3A championship.

Hall suffered an ankle injury in the Henryville game and missed three games before coming off the bench against Park Tudor.

He grabbed a rebound soon after coming into that game and finished with seven points and four rebounds against Park Tudor and five points and five rebounds against Parke Heritage.

Hall spoke on when he entered the Park-Tudor game on Saturday.

“I felt pretty good,” Hall said. “My ankle is still a little tender, but I was just glad to be out there. I thought I was at about 60 percent, maybe 70 percent.”

He spoke about winning the semistate final.

“It means a lot to us. It was like revenge for us (after losing in the semi state finals a year ago),” Hall said. “We worked on our defense. Obviously, we knew we had a real good team this year. We knew we would be good on offense. We just had to work on our defense at practice. That is why we’re going to state.”

Coomer talked about the Braves’ strong second half against Parke Heritage.

“We weren’t very good in the first half,” he said. “But we came out in the second half and really turned things around. We turned up the pressure defensively, and I thought we did a really good job.”

He said the Braves had to play different styles of ball in the two games.

“This morning we were kind of sagging off a little bit, playing the driving lanes, playing the gaps,” Coomer said. “Parke-Heritage shot the light out. They are a really good shooting team, so we had to make adjustments. We had to be all-around better.”

“We worked for (going to state) all season. It feels good to finally do it,” he added. “We all did our part, we all played hard. I’m proud of the team, proud of everybody. It’s a great program.”