Northridge Defeats Homestead 46-39, Advances to Class 4A Semistate Final

Northridge held off Homestead 46-39 in the Class 4A North semistate semifinal at Elkhart's North Side Gym on Saturday morning, setting up a championship game that could rewrite the program's history books.

The win pushed the Raiders to 25-1 and extended their winning streak to 19 games, a run that ranks as the fourth-longest among the 32 teams still alive across all four classes. Northridge will face the winner of Crown Point (23-1) and Fort Wayne Snider (20-7) in the semistate title game later Saturday night at the same venue.

A state finals berth would be unprecedented for the program. No Northridge basketball team, boys or girls, has ever reached the state finals. It would also mark the first time an Elkhart County boys program has gotten there since NorthWood made the trip in 2023.

The road to this point runs through a loss. Northridge's only defeat this season came against Goshen, and coach Scott Radeker said that setback reshaped everything that followed. The Raiders responded by winning three straight at the Phil Cox Memorial Tournament in Kokomo, including a 40-point performance from senior Brady Scholl against Merrillville and a championship victory over South Bend Riley. "Success breeds success; when you win, you want more of it," Radeker said. "You have to stay hungry. You have to stay driven, and that's the rallying cry."

For Radeker, the momentum has been building in waves. Heading into this season, he carried 24 years of experience and more than 330 wins as an Indiana high school boys head coach without ever claiming an IHSAA regional championship. That changed on March 14 at Plymouth High School, where Northridge beat South Bend Saint Joseph 73-67. When the final buzzer sounded, Radeker lifted both arms above his head, pointed both index fingers skyward, and ran past his celebrating players toward the Northridge student section.

Scholl, whose 40-point outburst in Kokomo made him one of the season's defining stories alongside his sister Lily, has been central to the Raiders' rise as one of the faces of the program. The semifinal win over Homestead gave the 10 a.m. crowd at Elkhart's North Side Gym an early reason to stay for the night session.

The gym itself has become familiar ground for Northridge. The Raiders also won their first sectional crown since 2020 at the same site just two weeks ago. A semistate championship Saturday night would make it three historic milestones in the same building inside a month.