(12-26-22) Wingate would win two consecutive Indiana High School Athletic Association State Championships in 1913 and 1914…the 3rd and 4th State tournaments ever played in the Hoosier state.

Located in Montgomery County, Wingate’s 1910 population was 446. Wingate High School, after the closing of several one-room schools in the area, it would create an enrollment of 67, 22 were boys.

They had no gym, sometimes they would practice outside when the weather allowed or in the school basement. Twice a week they would practice at New Richmond and play home games at the same gym. Most games were on the road…they traveled 576 miles during the 1912-13 season and 1,675 miles during the 1913-14 season….most trips were by via trains and interurbans (a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars).

During the two seasons they had a different coach, the 1912-13 season saw Jesse Woods, who left for a job at Rockville High School after the school year, he was replaced by Leonard Lehman for the 1913-14 season.

1913 Season

Wingate finished the 1912-13 season with a 16-4 record. Wins came against Romney, Hillsboro, Odell, Linden, Breaks, Waveland, Crawfordsville’s B team, Covington, Roachdale, Greencastle, Colfax, and Cayuga.

In the Hillsboro game, Homer Stonebraker (6’4″) scored 74 points in a one hundred-point win.

Wingate lost four times during the season, including two losses to Crawfordsville, a loss to defending state champion Lebanon, and a one-point loss to Thorntown.

Wingate would win the 1913 state title beating Lafayette 23-14 in the afternoon semifinal game and South Bend in the title game 15-14 that went 5 overtimes.

1912-13 Indiana State Finals

1913-14 Season

Wingate opened the 1913-14 season against Williamsport, Cutler, Advance, Rockville, and Waveland, and they averaged 40 points a game, and held their opponents to 16.5. They would lose four straight against Lebanon, Thorntown, Bloomington, and Anderson, which dropped their record to 7-4.

They would go 6-1 over their final games and ended the regular season with a 13-5 record, in which they averaged 38.3 points per game while outscoring their opponents by an average of twenty-one points a game with Stonebraker averaging 25 points a game.

1914 Indiana State Finals

Box scores courtesy IHSAA Legacy Web Site

Wingate High School closed its doors for the final time in 1954 and would consolidate with New Richmond to form Coal Creek Central High School. In 1971, Coal Creek, Darlington and Linden would merge to form North Montgomery.

Did you know…

Indiana Daily Times, March 23rd, 1920

After the 1920 Crawfordsville and Wingate teams had been banned from the IHSAA for recruiting violations, both teams embarked upon independent schedules that pitted them not only against each other but also some of the best high school, independent and semi-professional competition in the nation.  Both teams entered the Tri-State Tourney (KY, IN, and OH) in Cincinnati won by Crawfordsville and both teams played in the National Interscholastic tournament in Chicago won by Wingate.

Wingate’s connection with ‘Hoosiers’…In 1985, New Richmond was turned into Hickory, Indiana, for the filming of the motion picture Hoosiers.

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