BOYS BASKETBALL SECTIONAL PREVIEW: Seymour

Coach Scott Miller says he hopes his Seymour basketball team can come up with a balanced scoring attack on Tuesday night when it faces Jeffersonville in the opening game of the Class 4A Sectional 15 at Seymour.

The Owls (10-9) will play the Red Devils (17-4) at 6 p.m., followed by Floyd Central (14-7) playing Jennings County (3-17).

New Albany (18-2) and Bedford North Lawrence (10-9) drew the byes and will play on Friday night. New Albany is the defending sectional champion.

Jeffersonville defeated Seymour 80-65 in a Hoosier Hills Conference game on Dec. 11 at Seymour. The Red Devils led 37-25 at the half, and then outscored Seymour 43-40 in the second half.

Matt Trimnell leads the Owls in scoring with an average of 24.5 and Nolan Fife is next at 11.7.

“They’ll body up on Matt and try to shut him down and make somebody else score, and we’ve got to have more than one person step up,” Miller said. “We’ve got to have scoring from a lot of different people on Tuesday night.”

In the earlier game, Trimnell scored 25, Jacob Carmichael 13, Zach Toppe 11 and Fife 10.
Jeffersonville also had balance with six players scoring between nine and 13 points. Kegan Clark topped the Red Devils with 13 points and Evan Maschmeyer and Anthony Adams scored 12 each.

“They’re very quick, very big and strong,” Miller said. “We’ve got to contain the ball and obviously (at Columbus North on Tuesday) we didn’t do that. We allowed them to run a layup drill half the game, and you’re not going to beat a team the caliber of Jeffersonville, or Columbus North for that matter, that way. We’ve got to be able to stop ball penetration, and at every level you have to do that.”

Seymour is 2-3 against sectional opponents with wins over Jennings County and Floyd Central and losses to New Albany, Bedford North Lawrence and Jeffersonville.

The Owls are averaging 59.7 points per game and giving up 59.6, while the Red Devils average 67.5 and give up 56.3.

Seymour was 6-3 at home this season.

“We’ve grown accustomed to New Albany,” Miller said. “It’s certainly better to play somebody other than the favorite. That’s not taking anything away from Jeffersonville. They smacked us the first time we played them, and we match up better with them than we do with New Albany. We’ve got to do the little things we didn’t do well in the fall with them and try to see what we can get done.”

Miller said he is hoping to have everybody healthy for the sectional. Several members of the team were ill last week and unable to practice Monday, and Toppe was unable to play in the Columbus North game.

The winner of the Seymour Sectional will advance to the Seymour Regional on March 13.

Probable starters

Nolan Fife, senior (11.7)
Matt Trimnell, senior (24.5)
Zach Toppe, senior (5.6)
Jacob Carmichael, junior (7.6)
Connor Kirtley, sophomore (5.7)

Class 4A Sectional 15 at Seymour
Tuesday
Game 1: 6 p.m. – Seymour (9-9) vs. Jeffersonville (17-4)
Game 2: 7:30 p.m. – Floyd Central (14-7) vs. Jennings County (3-17)
Friday
Game 3: 6 p.m. – Bedford North Lawrence (10-10) vs. Winner of Game 1
Game 4: 7:30 p.m. – New Albany (18-2) vs. Winner of Game 2
Saturday
Game 5: 7:30 p.m. – Winner of Game 3 vs. Winner of Game 4