By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Many of those who attended Friday’s 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony at Central Park in Warsaw for the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will not live to see the 50th.

Guest speaker for the ceremony, Mark Eaton, founder of the Eaton Leadership Foundation, stated, “Congratulations, Warsaw. Congratulations, gentlemen, for an event like this. These are going on around our country this evening, but I have to tell you, clearly I am afraid. I look around at these guys behind me and as handsome as they are, they’re old. And the rest of you are old or are getting old. We will forget, unless we do something. So what are we going to do? Well, that’s for us to talk about.”

He said if there were young people in the audience, “We need you, who did not shed tears 25 years ago, to feel what we feel, because we shed tears, some of us more than others.”
Eaton, 70, said those who forget lose what is forgotten.

“I will never forget. We must never forget. We, this group of us, will remember and, importantly, we need to remember to remember. We need reminders like this,” he said.

The first plane on Sept. 11, 2001, struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. EST. Eaton was at his home then in Mt. Vernon, Wash., and was three hours behind. He was headed down the hill to a little café where he had met other gentlemen every Tuesday.

“As we walked in, we all had our radios on and we heard what was going on and we were stunned and in disbelief. In a matter of minutes, our entire country was drawn into grief and uncertainty,” Eaton said.

He said the people who drove the planes and paid for those people to drive the planes “attacked American soil, much like Pearl Harbor was. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. Four hijacked planes, carried 300 people nearly.”

American Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles struck the North Tower. United Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles struck the South Tower. American Flight 77 from Washington to Dallas struck the Pentagon. United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco crashed into Shanksville, Pa.

“We remember Welles Crowther, the man in the red bandana. It’s a beautiful story about him that you can watch,” Eaton said. “We remember Rick Rescoria who organized Morgan Stanley and stood there singing to them to keep them calm as he got them all organized and out and down. Nearly 2,700 of them walked down those stairs.”

Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney were flight attendants on Flight 11, stayed on the telephone with the EMS and gave important information. Brian Clark helped many people escape from a tower. Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz helped carry people out of the North Tower. Mike Benfante helped carry a woman out who needed a wheelchair.

“Their lives were not statistics. They were fathers, mothers, son, friends, daughters. They had stories. Some ran toward the danger when every instinct told them to run away. Young people with us … these are the people who did not cowardly stand there filming the fight, hoping to make $50 for a YouTube post. These are people who ran to the fight. This is the stuff of heroes, not bystanders,” Eaton said. “We saw courage aboard 93 where Todd Beamer and the now-famous ‘Let’s roll!’ and that crew and those people that were on that flight didn’t wait for somebody else. They saw what was happening, heard what was happening and took action as best as they know how.”

There were fighter pilots who did not have time to put munitions on their plane, who flew toward the flight and were prepared to give their life.

Eaton spoke about the help Canada gave to those who were stranded there after the attacks. Many flights traveling to the United States were turned back to Europe, Mexico and other countries, and those countries and others offered global assistance while the air space over the U.S. was shut down.

“There were so many casualties other than the immediate 3,000 that happened afterwards as sickness still affects the responding fire departments and EMS,” Eaton said.

He congratulated Warsaw for the 9/11 Memorial and said every town in the U.S. that can afford it should have one.

“For the younger generations who aren’t here, it will be up to us, you and I, to walk away from tonight, moved and reminded, and we need to tell them. We need to somehow get into schools and into a history class. We need to speak to it from our pulpits. We need to talk about it with radio programs and television programs that remind them of what that day was,” he said.

It’s moments like Friday’s ceremony where more than facts are taught. Every high school student knows about 3,000 people, but they can’t tell you other than the Twin Towers which buildings went down, he said. “They certainly don’t know the names of heroes, those are the facts, but more importantly they do not know about the thousands of U.S. young men who enlisted – including my son — as a result of this. Facts don’t inspire. Todd Beamer inspires. Those flight attendants inspire. The red bandana man who ran back, inspires. We need images of heroes or we become filmers of tragedy. We need to know what a hero looks like so that when our moment comes, we can act, hopefully in a way that creates a positive outcome.”

Friday’s ceremony honored local first responders. As a former EMT himself who was involved in dangerous rescues, Eaton said, “I speak to you and I say, ‘Thank you for that.’ You’ve prepared in silence. You’ve trained without fanfare. You’ve done hard things. You’ve been in cold nights, cold water, cold conditions, frozen fingers and nobody writes about your frozen fingers, they write about the accident. Nobody talks about the money you’ve spent for new shoes and new boots and new clothes and new helmets at your own expense. Nobody talks about that nice dinner at home when we get the text to respond and we leave our family to go rescue someone else’s family, often as a result of a poor decision. Thank you for doing that.”

A person may say they’ll never forget 9/11, but “we’ll see, right? We need to remember to remember,” Eaton stated. “We can teach our children what happened on that day, and why it matters … teach your grandchildren. They love to hear stories about when grandpa was young. Tell them the story about when grandpa was young. One morning in September you won’t believe what happened. Do not give these people victory by being silent. Ignore the shame of the names they might call you. My friends, we must speak. This crowd, in general, will be dead by the next 25th. If you don’t speak, there won’t be one of these, or maybe we’re forgetting.”

It should be clear that we will remember the innocent lives lost.

“This attack did not come to a military base or to soldiers who knew they were in combat. It came to babies and grandpas and single moms and flight attendants. It was cowardly!” Eaton exclaimed. “And these weren’t men who inspired these attacks. These were boys pretending to be men. Quote me. And they attacked this United States, and we have been here for 250 years. And, my friends, if we blink at this moment, when are we going to start blinking at all the moments? When are we going to start dropping our heads and apologizing for the blood my dad, my brother, my son have spilled overseas.”

He said we’re going to honor the heroes who responded, stand with the families here and otherwise who still grieve and thank those who protect our communities “and who drive around at 2 in the morning and see what no one else wants to get up at 2 in the morning to see.” Eaton stressed that we have to teach future generations to move forward with a new gratitude for our country, with compassion for the people in 9/11 and since. “And a determination to be good stewards of what we’ve been given.”

“May we have the courage to say no to the slow cultural creep and drifting that might cause us, one day, it’s imaginable to me, to lose this republic. Say no to the slow creep of losing our spine. Losing what stormed the beaches of Normandy that the French children now have forgotten and they just laugh at America. They forget Grandpa was there, my grandpa,” he said.

He said may we have the courage to stand up to those who want to tear down what our grandparents built with their callouses and blood.

“We will never forget. We will remember. We need to pass it on to future generations so they will not forget. My friends in Warsaw, thank you for having me. Remember to remember,” he stated.

Mike Cox, 9/11 Remembrance Committee member, gave the welcoming remarks and talked about the monument in Central Park near the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion. On the east side, it pays tribute to New York, Shanksville and the Pentagon, while the west side pays tribute to those who have fallen in the county in the line of duty.

He thanked the committee members, contributors and later the sponsors.
The presentation of colors, national anthem and the pledge of allegiance led by Boy Scouts followed, with Cox then speaking about Sept. 11, “the worse attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.” Nearly 3,000 were murdered in the attacks.

Ed Rock sang “Have You Forgotten?” by Darryl Worley, and toward the end of the ceremony he sang “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood.

Johnny Butler, Sons of the American Legion, spoke about the Honor and Sacrifice and the Honor and Remember flags.

Kyle Miller, chaplain for the Burket Volunteer Fire Department and the Kosciusko Fire Association, read brief biographies of those first responders in the county who died in the line of duty.

Ken Locke, a committee member, spoke about the day after 9/11 and how everyone was neighborly and we should get back to that. He led everyone in prayer.

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By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw

WARSAW — Kosciusko County on Thursday night became the latest community to unplug Flock cameras after nearly 200 people showed up for a hearing to voice opposition.

Council heard a tsunami of public anger over Flock cameras, and after more than two hours of discussion, approved a series of unanimous proposals to defund all surveillance programs in the county.

Thursday’s meeting came after council delayed a final decision on the prosecutor’s 2027 budget a few weeks ago after council members spoke out.

Thursday’s votes are the latest sign of growing opposition to Flock cameras.

Officials in Fort Wayne and Noble County recently took action to end Flock services amid a growing backlash over privacy rights and the potential for abuse.

Thursday’s meeting was at times raucous and was delayed nearly 30 minutes as security tried to escort out people who had gathered outside the entrance of the old second-floor courtroom after seating inside reached capacity.

Some gathered on the first floor, and as many as 80 people remained outside the courthouse and listened online to the debate.

On numerous occasions, those inside the meeting could hear the boos and howls of opposition voiced from those outside.

Public opposition in Kosciusko County was led by what some called a tripartisan alliance on the issue, in which Travis McConnell, a Democrat, Chris Plack, a Republican, and Cassie Rolon, the chair of the Libertarian Party of Kosciusko County, worked together to lobby against funding

Rolon was one of many who spoke.

“All three major political parties are represented here tonight, standing together in unison on this issue, Rolon said. “That should tell you something about how strongly your constituents feel.”

Plack summed up some of the anger and also sent a warning.

“These aren’t our values that I voted for, and they won’t be the values we vote for next time,” Plack said.

Much of the animosity was directed at a Flock Safety representative who attended the meeting. At one point, one man called the company “a billion-dollar data thief.”

Several dozen people spoke against the use of license plate reader technology, but aside from law enforcement, the prosecutor’s office, and a representative of Flock Safety, nobody voiced support for the controversial policy.

Many were upset over the abuses of the technology by police that has already documented locally and nationwide. Some predicted advances in AI would create a network of surveillance, while others harkened back to the COVID-19 pandemic and suggested today’s surveillance technology could have been used then to control movements during the lockdown.

One man called the contract “a deal with the devil,” and urged council to back out of the agreement.

Rolon said afterward the trio’s attendance at an earlier budget meeting quickly led to a coordinated opposition.

She said afterward that she was proud of the public turnout.

“I truly do feel that if Chris, Travis, and I were not sitting in these seats when that budget meeting happened, they would have passed everything … in that line item issue,” Rolon said. “So I’m truly grateful that everybody is here.”

Councilman Will Stockdale made all three motions that were approved unanimously.

The first motion sought to withhold any funding for any ALPR (Automatic License Plate Readers) cameras or other similar surveillance equipment out of any county-controlled fund, whether using taxpayer dollars, user fees or grants.

The second motion was to “withhold any funding of Axon Justice without specific council approval.

Another motion addressed surveillance technologies, including signal tracing, drones, gunshot detectors, and other technology without county council approval.

While county council voted against funding, the county commissioners will now be asked to discontinue the existing contract at its Sept. 22 meeting.

Ahead of the meeting, many local officials, based on previous comments from council members, appeared to expect an uphill battle to preserve the program.

Prosecutor Brad Voelz, in his presentation at the meeting, pledged to work as a team to refine related policies and then announced that if council voted to block Flock funding, he would not seek to use any other similar programs.

Voelz had sought funding for next year’s budget to use Axon, which is used to help collect data and information to build criminal cases.

Opponents saw that as another part of a growing surveillance network.

Opponents also took aim at a 2023 ordinance that paved the way for a donations fund to support Flock infrastructure. While the commissioners approved it, some want to know why they used an exception available in the law to circumvent a vote by county council.

The county is expected to provide a clarification at the next commissioners’ meeting.

County Council’s two top leaders, President Tony Ciriello and Vice President Kathy Groninger, were unable to attend. Joe Irwin was selected to oversee the meeting.

Ciriello participated remotely online, but was prohibited from voting on the budget issue due to existing policy.

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News Release

WARSAW — The extensive reconstruction of Anchorage Road in Warsaw will move to a new phase beginning Friday.

In fact, motorists will be able to reach all of the businesses from U.S. 30 starting on Friday.

Construction will now focus on opposite ends of the project.

County Road 200N will close from U.S. 30 to Biomet Drive, which is north of U.S. 30.

On the western side, a short portion of Anchorage Road will be closed from State Road 15 to the railroad crossing.

Construction of those two segments simultaneously will shorten the project length by about a month, according to a news release from the city.

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News Release

The event brought together about 300 elected officials, business and community leaders, partners and guests to celebrate the people, projects and possibilities shaping the future of Kosciusko County.

“Our Annual Celebration is an opportunity to recognize the people and organizations whose leadership, collaboration and investment continue to move Kosciusko County forward,” said Simmons.

“KEDCO’s work is rooted in connecting people, advancing projects and creating possibilities that grow lasting prosperity throughout our county. The individuals and businesses honored this evening embody that mission through the meaningful contributions they make to our communities.”

Simmons also shared highlights from KEDCO’s work throughout the past year and introduced the organization’s new mission: “KEDCO connects people, projects and possibilities to grow lasting prosperity for all of Kosciusko County.” She emphasized the partnerships and shared commitment behind KEDCO’s efforts to support business growth, housing, workforce development, entrepreneurship, talent attraction and community development across the county.

KEDCO concluded the evening by recognizing the 2026 award recipients in several distinguished categories:

• Rising Leader Award: Alex Hall, Maribeth Nelson, Tim Landrigan, Sam Engle and Rusty Martinez
• Business Impact Award: The River Coffee, Brew City Roasting Company and Precision Medical Technologies
• Community Impact Award: Lewis Salvage
• Inspiring Mentor Award: Trisha Musall, Joe’s Kids
• Innovator of the Year Award: Kevin Stone, Orchard Medical Development
• Community Catalyst Award: Sherry Searles, LaunchPad

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By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw

WARSAW — The future of Flock Cameras in Kosciusko County appears to be hanging in the balance ahead of tonight’s County Council meeting.

Council is expected to hear a presentation from County Prosecutor Brad Voelz defending and explaining details of the program, which has been in use for several years.

Opposition to what some consider to be a surveillance system has grown across parts of the country and has become an issue in Kosciusko County in recent weeks.

Consider the following: 

• Over the past week, more than a dozen communities in Wisconsin have suspended their contracts with Flock Safety, the company behind Flock’s automated license plate readers, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
• News outlets in Fort Wayne reported Wednesday that Noble County has decided to shut down its Flock cameras, mainly because of vandalism. Noble County officials say six cameras have been damaged recently.
• Earlier this month, Fort Wayne Police announced it would take down its cameras.
• In Warsaw, a change.org petition posted by a resident critical of Flock Cameras has attracted support from more than 1,000 people.

Several Kosciusko County Council members have expressed concerns about the program, marking a rare instance where some of the conservative, all-Republican Council have come out in opposition to a local law enforcement initiative.

Former County Commissioner Brad Jackson said he’s been talking to local, state, and federal officials about the issue and said he thinks more regulations may well eventually be set by Congress.

Jackson said policymakers have struggled to keep up with the emerging technology in ways that could rein in some concerns.

In the meantime, he said he thinks efforts to shut down Flock Cameras in Kosciusko County have gained momentum.

“People are just realizing and waking up to that, hey, we live in a free country, and we don’t need to be tracked,” Jackson said.

He said it boils down to personal freedom.

“I just don’t like them knowing your every movement. It’s not the government’s business,” he said. “It’s very Orwellian. I mean, George Orwell was almost prophetic in what he wrote.”

Jackson said he realizes the cameras are a good tool for police but thinks the use of such devices violates privacy rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

“You look at it, and you say, what’s the good that comes from it, what’s the bad that comes from it? I just feel the bad outweighs the good in the fact that they’re tracking vehicles,” Jackson said. “They call them license plate readers, but you can see more than the license plates.”

Tonight’s meeting comes one week after law enforcement and Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose released 20 pages of documents supporting the use of Flock Cameras.

Travis McConnell, a local attorney who earlier this week questioned details of a 2023 ordinance by the county commission involving a Flock Camera donation fund, said he thinks the release of information last week may have backfired in terms of public opinion. 

Opponents of the devices, he said, find it an “odd hill to die on” for the sake of “defending mass surveillance of Americans.”

More than 30 cameras have been installed in Kosciusko County.

Officials said nearly one-third of those have been damaged.

Tonight’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the county courthouse.

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News Release

WARSAW — Three events in Warsaw will be part of Friday’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The public is invited to participate in a Patriot Day Remembrance Parade, a Memorial Ceremony and America’s Picnic.

The evening will honor the nearly 3,000 lives lost on September 11, remember the sacrifices made in the years that followed, and recognize the first responders, members of the military and others who serve their communities and country.

America’s Picnic will begin at 6:15 p.m. at Central Park, where the public is invited to enjoy complimentary hot dogs, chips and bottled water, along with the famous homemade ice cream from Echoes of the Past. 

The food and the entire evening are free of charge.

The Patriot Day Remembrance Parade will step off at 6:30 p.m. from Boggs Industrial Park on West Center Street. Parade lineup begins at 5:30 p.m. The route will travel along Center Street to Indiana Street and Canal Street, concluding near Central Park.

At about 7:15 p.m., the Memorial Ceremony will begin at Central Park, 117 E. Canal St.

The ceremony will include the presentation of colors, a moment of silence and a keynote address from Mark Eaton, executive director of the Eaton Leadership Foundation.

Eaton brings more than four decades of experience in leadership, nonprofit work, mentoring and service. His career has ranged from directing a wilderness camping program for troubled youth to consulting with and mentoring business and community leaders.

Known for a practical and engaging approach to leadership, Eaton’s work emphasizes character, authenticity, personal responsibility and the influence individuals can have on those around them. That message makes him particularly fitting for a ceremony focused not only on remembering September 11, but on carrying forward the unity and service Americans demonstrated afterward. 

A special focus of Friday’s gathering will be “Celebrating the Spirit of September 12.” In the hours and days following the attacks, Americans came together in an extraordinary display of unity, patriotism, kindness and service to one another.

Twenty-five years later, organizers hope the community will remember not only what happened on September 11, but also who we became on September 12  —  neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers, and Americans setting aside their differences to stand together.

Families are encouraged to attend, bring lawn chairs and join friends and neighbors for this free community evening of remembrance, gratitude and unity.

Here is a recap of Friday’s events:

5:30 p.m. — Parade lineup at Boggs Industrial Park
6:15 p.m. — America’s Picnic begins at Central Park — complimentary hot dogs, chips, water and Echoes of the Past homemade ice cream
6:30 p.m. — Patriot Day Remembrance Parade
7:15 p.m. — Memorial Ceremony at Central Park featuring keynote speaker Mark Eaton

For more information, email info@kcfreedomfest.org

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As we prepare to pause and remember the events of the darkest day in modern American history, I think it’s also important to remember what happened afterward.

The dastardly deeds done on September 11, 2001, changed the world and the United States forever.

We’ve not been the same since.

Oh sure, in some ways we have completely recovered, and America has collectively shaken its fist at those who cheered as our buildings fell with people still inside and as planes crashed with passengers still on board.

What followed was the normal stages of grief — deni al, anger, depression, and, ultimately, acceptance.

That manifested itself, in part, in the number of people who went to lower Manhattan to help search for survivors and to lend what assistance they could.

25 years later, the vision of an airplane filled with people crashing into a skyscraper filled with people just starting what would be their last day on earth still shocks and angers me.

That day was a Tuesday, and there was a period of a few days where we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves.

Is it ok for us to go to work?

Do we watch the TV news coverage?

There were no rules for that kind of thing. It’s one thing when the president is shot and killed in Dallas and we watch the reports on TV, but it’s totally different when we were watching one tower burn while the second plane hit the other World Trade Center building.

We saw the whole thing with our own eyes.

Ultimately, there came a point at which America had to get back to functioning. We had to show the people behind the attacks that they didn’t win and they were never going to beat us.

But how? Where do we start?

The journey back began with sports.

Four days after the attacks, Indiana high school football teams took the field to play their Week 4 games.

The atmosphere was different, to be certain.

Some people hadn’t left the house since that Tuesday morning. Some people felt guilty for going to a football game that Friday night.

But people went, and when it was over, almost everyone was glad they did.

It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary.

And, frankly, it was clear that Indiana and middle America were not a target in all of this, and we were in no danger sitting in the bleachers or in the press box.

Major League Baseball waited 10 days to restart its season. Because of how the attacks were carried out, flying restrictions were ultra-tight, and people didn’t really want to get on an airplane right away anyway.

Pro football returned later that same weekend.

And slowly, one event after another began to spring back up. Those chicken fundraisers came back on the community’s calendar. The chili cookoffs were rescheduled. The fall festivals prepared to welcome visitors.

It’s like when someone close to you dies. Whenever the period of mourning ends, you must seek out the “new normal”. Oh, be sure, it will never be the same, and “normal” will never feel quite right because a part of you is missing. A piece of you that mattered is gone, and it isn’t coming back.

That happened in America in the days and weeks after Sept. 11.

But we knew we had to start back toward a path of getting back to living, even if our only motivation was that we were doing it in remembrance of those who were no longer with us.

And, as is usually the case, each person has a different way of dealing with grief and a different timeline for how long it will take to get to the other side.

But somehow, we had to plow forward.

And we did.

And it was sports that led the way.

It was sports that said to Americans, “follow me, we’ll get there together.”

It was sports that gave us the distraction from the news videos of planes and tanks moving through the sands and hills of the Middle East, the parade of trucks hauling debris from Ground Zero, and the aerial views of the smoldering crater in the shape of an airplane in western Pennsylvania.

It was sports that let us know we could emerge from hiding.

And the roar of the crowd felt a little louder then.
We needed sports in the weeks and months after that awful day, and it delivered.

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By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw

WARSAW — The topic of Flock Cameras will be front and center Thursday night at the Kosciusko County Council meeting, but the issue surfaced Tuesday, when the County Commissioners convened.

That’s when local attorney Travis McConnell, who has become an outspoken critic of Flock cameras, sought to understand why the County Commissioners passed an ordinance in 2023 that created a donation fund for Flock cameras, but without approval by the County Council.

Such a move is permissible, but requires an exception.

McConnell wanted to know what the exception was.

County attorney Ed Ormsby was unable to provide an answer immediately, but said he’d look into it.

Opponents of Flock Cameras say authorities have not been upfront and transparent about the use of the devices.

Several County Council members have expressed concerns about Flock cameras, and County Prosecutor Brad Voelz is expected to give a presentation at Thursday night’s County Council meeting.

Several individuals and groups have been urging people to attend the meeting, and a big crowd is expected to attend.

The start time at the courthouse is 6 p.m.

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By Dan Spalding
New Now Warsaw

WARSAW — Kosciusko County officials on Tuesday announced plans for the first-ever State of the County meeting scheduled for Oct. 20 at Lincoln Elementary School in Warsaw.

A news release said it’s an opportunity to hear directly from county leadership, ask questions, and “engage in conversations about the county’s future.”

The event is designed to provide an open and transparent update on county initiatives, accomplishments, challenges, and priorities while encouraging meaningful dialogue between local government and the community it serves, said a news release issued by the county.

The State of the County Community Meeting reflects the county’s commitment to accountability, accessibility, and collaboration while providing a platform for productive conversations around accomplishments, opportunities, and challenges facing the community, the news release said.

County Commissioner Cary Groninger said all three commissioners and County Council President Tony Ciriello plan to participate.

Groninger was asked Tuesday after the announcement what prompted the move.

“We’re trying to make sure we’re engaged in the public. I think this is an opportunity for us to be honest and brag a little bit about our county because we have a lot of things to really be thankful for,” Groninger said. “I mean, we’re really blessed in Kosciusko County.”

The format will include a Q&A session in which residents can submit questions ahead of time online.

To submit a question, click here.

Afterward, county department heads will be available for discussion.

Commissioner Bob Connolly says it’s also an opportunity for the county to highlight its economic development initiatives and accomplishments.

“You know, oftentimes, like you said, there are hot-button items, and sometimes we get caught up in those things. And in the big scheme of things, throughout the entire community, the county, there’s so much more going on than just these hot-button items,” Conley said.

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In the JV matchup, Valley earned a straight-set victory (25-15, 25-20). Kennlea Koch led the way with 2 aces and 4 assists, while Amanda Rivera-Roche powered the offense with 4 kills. Alayna Parker added 2 kills, Bella Parker and Bella Newcomer chipped in 2 digs apiece, and Africa Baca and Minda Shriver each contributed a block.

The varsity squad followed with an impressive 3–1 win (25-18, 25-19, 23-25, 25-15). Senior Betty Shepherd paced the attack with 11 kills, while Gaby Gonzalez anchored the defense with 7 digs. Kinley Crabb dished out 13 assists to keep the offense rolling, and Bailey Anderson added a block. Autumn Parker and Lillian Dunbar kept Wawasee off balance from the service line with 4 aces each.

The Vikings were also spotlighted this week as Shepherd, Gonzalez, and junior Hadley Wise were named to the IHSVCA Players to Watch list, recognizing 75 players across Michiana.

Tippecanoe Valley looks to keep the momentum going when they travel to Plymouth on Wednesday night.

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