Columbia City Eagles Rout East Chicago Central 66-37, Reach 3A Semistate Final

Columbia City's defense turned the Berry Bowl in Logansport into a dead end for East Chicago Central on Saturday, holding the visitors to 37 points in a 66-37 rout that sent the Eagles into the Class 3A semistate championship game the same night.

The noon semifinal was never close. Columbia City entered averaging 42.6 points allowed per game against a team that had been surrendering 63.3 per outing all season, and the matchup played out exactly as those numbers suggested. East Chicago Central, which averages 58.3 points per game offensively, fell more than 21 points short of that mark.

Senior standouts Landon Richmond and Owen Marshall, both averaging in the high teens, paced an Eagles offense that scores 59.9 points per game on the season. Senior guard Jamari Pollard, the team's leading scorer at 13.0 points and 3.8 rebounds per game, and senior guard Joseph Watkins Jr., who averages 10.3 points per game, gave Columbia City three experienced perimeter threats. Freshman wing Naji Meux, scoring at a 10.7-point clip, added another dimension to an attack that proved too deep for East Chicago Central to handle.

Columbia City came in at 23-4, having claimed the Class 3A Plymouth Regional championship with a 55-33 win over Hanover Central the previous Saturday. East Chicago Central, at 15-12, had earned its semistate berth by knocking off Mishawaka Marian 78-74 in the Michigan City Regional, a tougher path than the margin Saturday suggested.

With the win, Columbia City advanced to the evening's 8 p.m. semistate championship game at the Berry Bowl, with a spot in the March 28 state finals at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on the line. The Eagles' opponent in that game was determined by the earlier semifinal between New Haven, which entered 20-7, and Delta at 16-10.

A trip to Indianapolis is now one win away.