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The Indiana High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) drew the girls basketball state tournament on Sunday, determining the path for the Valparaiso High School girls basketball team to get to the state title game.
The Vikings will face off against the Merrillville Pirates in the Class 4A Sectional 2 opening round in the fourth game at Portage High School. If they win the first game, they will face the winner of Hobart-Michigan City. The exact dates will be determined later in the week.
The Vikings program comes into the tournament with 20 previous sectional championships, good for fourth-most in state history, tied with Bedford North Lawrence and Kokomo.
The IHSAA shares its process for the draw:
“To conduct the random drawing for the girls basketball state tournament, the IHSAA places ping-pong balls representing each school in a given sectional into a lottery-style air mix machine. A motorized fan in the bottom of the machine blows the balls around the inside of the transparent container and air then forces each ball up through a tube in random order. For example, the first ball retrieved from the machine will be the visiting team in game one with the second ball representing the home team in game one. The third ball to come out is the visitor in game two and the fourth ball the home team in game two. That same method is followed through all 64 sectionals and 16 regionals.”