Monroe Central's Ta'Shaun Beatty Honors Late Father in Semistate Loss
Ta'Shaun Beatty pulled down 21 rebounds and scored 16 points, but wept as his final high school seconds ticked away — his father, Lee, died last December.
The tears came before the horn sounded. As the final seconds wound down on Ta'Shaun Beatty's high school career at Lafayette Jeff High School, the 6-foot-5 Monroe Central senior forward couldn't hold them back — and nobody in the building could blame him.
North Vermillion ended Monroe Central's season 63-55 in an IHSAA Class 1A semistate semifinal on March 21, but the weight Beatty carried into that gym stretched far beyond a basketball game. Lee Beatty, his father, passed away last December. Every game since has been played in that shadow.
Beatty finished with 16 points and 21 rebounds, nine of them offensive, to lead the Golden Bears. He was the state's leading rebounder. None of those numbers softened what came after the final horn. "I just wish he was here to watch me play basketball; he was there watching from above," Beatty said. Losing the game hurt, but even more so was a young man who simply wanted to share just one more hug, one more moment with his dad.
North Vermillion sophomore Teagan Leonard made Monroe Central's task nearly impossible, pouring in 35 points on 13-of-14 free throws to go with nine rebounds. A pair of 6-0 runs from Leonard, one in the first quarter and one in the third, kept the Golden Bears chasing the entire night. Coach Brian Klein didn't mince words about how that happened. "When their best player gets to the line 14 times, you can't guard someone at the foul line," Klein said. North Vermillion shot 21-for-31 from the stripe; Monroe Central went 11-of-17 while absorbing 21 team fouls to North Vermillion's 13.
Klein was honest about more than just the foul disparity. "We didn't get a lot of whistles, but that didn't decide the game. We weren't us. The ball didn't move the way it needed to move. Sometimes that's basketball. They played better than we did for 32 minutes."
The emotion broke through in Klein's postgame remarks. "Their season is over; they're heartbroken, and I could do enough to get them into tonight," he said. "The final horn ends the season but doesn't end the bond that, that team created. It'll be there forever. We just didn't do enough."
When the game ended, Klein and Beatty embraced in a final hug together — a senior who carried grief through an entire season, and a coach who wanted nothing more than to give him one more night.
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