GCA Enters Class A Regional Championship with Momentum Despite 11-14 Record

Eleven wins and fourteen losses is not the typical profile of a regional championship contender. Greenwood Christian Academy did not care.

The Cougars entered Saturday's Class A regional championship at Greenfield-Central High School having won eight of their last 10 games, riding that momentum into a matchup against Liberty Christian (18-7) that represented the program's fifth all-time appearance at the regional level. GCA punched its ticket by rolling past Eminence 70-51 in the Lutheran sectional, a convincing win that capped a late-season surge few saw coming in November.

The offseason picture had been bleak. Quality players graduated off a 10-14 roster that lost by 20 points in the first round of sectional the year before. The head coach who had run the program for the previous four seasons left to take the same job at a larger school. Most of the returning players had little or no starting experience. Into that void stepped Tony Adragna, 35, a former point guard at Southport High School who spent eight years as a Cardinals' assistant from 2013 to 2021. It was his first head coaching job, and the résumé he inherited made optimism difficult to justify.

Adragna found reasons anyway. "Honestly, we knew this group had a lot of potential, and when we beat Lutheran the first time, it really opened up those guys' eyes," he said. That first Lutheran win came at a tournament at Shenandoah in December and turned out to be the first of three victories over Lutheran on the season. A four-point conquest of Trinity Lutheran followed nearly two months later. Then came what Adragna considered the clearest evidence of real growth: a 67-55 road win at Speedway after Christmas break. "After Christmas break, we played a real solid Speedway team, and that was probably our best defensive effort," he said.

The offense that carried GCA down the stretch was genuinely distributed. Senior forward Kevin Gierke led the team in scoring at 8.8 points per game, with junior backup guard Ky Baker right behind at 8.0. Rangy 6-5 senior forward Will Jackson averaged 7.7 points and a team-high 5.3 rebounds. The secondary contributors were young but meaningful: 5-9 junior reserve guard Hudson Miller chipped in 4.9 points per game, and 5-8 sophomore Brayden Butler started at guard and added 3.9. No single player dominates the stat sheet, which is precisely what made this group difficult to game-plan against once it found its footing.

The opponent waiting in the regional final, Liberty Christian at 18-7, represented a steep climb. But a team that turned a 10-game stretch into a statement had already demonstrated it was not particularly concerned with what looked impossible on paper.