High School On SI: State championship recaps and top performers from Indiana’s March 28 finals

Indiana's 2026 IHSAA boys basketball state finals produced two first-time champions and a pair of dynasties cementing their legacies Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with all four classifications settling their titles in a single dramatic session on March 28.

Class 4A: Mt. Vernon 52, Crown Point 50

The defining swing came at halftime, when Mt. Vernon trailed Crown Point by 10 and looked like a bracket upset waiting to happen. What followed was the signature performance of Luke Ertel's high school career. The Purdue-bound senior guard finished with 26 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, engineering a second-half reversal that culminated in a two-point victory and the first state basketball title in Mt. Vernon program history. Mason Darrell punctuated the comeback with a deep 3-pointer from the left wing with 1.6 seconds remaining. The Marauders finished 28-3, and coach Joe Bradburn now has a trophy to go with what has been an extraordinary senior season from his floor general. Ertel's stat line alone should remove any remaining doubt about his Indiana Mr. Basketball candidacy.

Class 3A: Cathedral 71, New Haven 61

Indianapolis Cathedral did not win this game in the fourth quarter. It won it on the glass, all night. The Fighting Irish outrebounded New Haven 45-32, a dominance that became suffocating once coach Jason Delaney's late-zone defense took hold and forced the Bulldogs into contested perimeter looks they couldn't convert. New Haven finished 3-of-19 from three-point range, a 16 percent clip that erased any rhythm Tarvar Baskerville and the Bulldogs tried to establish. Cathedral's engine was a three-headed effort: Julien Smith posted a game-high 21 points, Keaton Aldridge contributed 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Owen Peterson added 11 points and 10 rebounds of his own. Two double-doubles in one state championship game is not a product of luck; it is what a program with five state finals appearances looks like when it peaks. The win is Cathedral's first state title since 2022 and adds a 3A ring to Delaney's already decorated collection.

Class 2A: Parke Heritage 57, Westview 56

No margin was smaller, no moment was bigger. Parke Heritage held off Westview by a single point to claim the first state basketball championship in school history, with the game-winning sequence playing out in the final minute. The Rockets entered as the lower-profile finalist against a Westview program that came in 27-1, making the outcome all the more striking. This is the kind of result that rewrites a program's identity in a single night.

Class 1A: Barr-Reeve 50, Triton 37

Barr-Reeve's third state championship in program history arrived the way most of its titles do: through disciplined halfcourt offense, airtight defensive rebounding and a second half that simply broke the opposition. The Vikings outscored Triton 30-17 after intermission, turning a competitive game into a controlled finish. Braxton Neidigh was a physical presence Triton's defense could not contain.

Taken together, March 28 reinforced a structural truth about Indiana high school basketball: championships at Gainbridge are won on the boards and at the free-throw line far more often than from behind the arc. New Haven's three-point woes and Mt. Vernon's rebounding contributions from Ertel mirror recent IHSAA final trends where halfcourt execution and interior depth routinely decide close games.

Looking ahead, Cathedral's roster carries significant underclassmen infrastructure, with freshmen Jayden Kennedy and Ryan Gold and sophomores Tristan Lloyd and Jaxson Delaney already part of the championship rotation. Parke Heritage will return to 2027 as a defending champion with first-title momentum. Mt. Vernon's graduation of Ertel leaves a significant void, though the Marauders now carry the infrastructure of a program that knows how to finish. Barr-Reeve's coaching continuity makes it a perennial 1A contender regardless of roster turnover. The 2027 title paths are already taking shape.