Frankfort High School will be the host of two semi-state volleyball championship games Saturday at Case Arena. Community Schools of Frankfort Superintendent Don DeWeese said this opportunity was really unexpected.
“This comes from one of the assistant commissioners of the IHSAA just being in Frankfort watching a girls’ soccer match,” said DeWeese. “She saw Case Arena from the outside and wanted to go inside. She went inside and it took her about 10 minutes to say ‘we need to have a semi-state here.”
Both Class A and Class 4A will determine their state champion representatives. In Class A, Pioneer, 29-9, plays Lafayette Central Catholic, 28-5, at 4 p.m. The 4A title will follow with defending Class 3A state champion Yorktown, 36-2, playing Crown Point, 34-3.
Both winners advance to the state finals next Saturday at Ball State University’s Worthen Arena. The Class A winner will play either Indianapolis Covenant Christian or Christian Academy of Indiana, while the 4A champion will face either Avon or Providence.
“We feel that it’s not only a great time to showcase Frankfort High School and Case Arena, but it’s also a great opportunity for our community as a lot of people are going to be traveling here to watch this competition,” said DeWeese. “This is pretty exciting, really grass root level economic development.”
This is not the only post-season activity that Frankfort High School will be hosting during the 2017-2018 school year. During the winter sports season, FHS will host a wrestling sectional on January 17 as well as the girls’ basketball sectional from January 30 to February 3 and the boys’ sectional basketball from February 27 to March 3. Also, Case Arena will be the site of the Class A boys’ basketball regional tournament on March 10.
Another new event comes to Frankfort next spring as the IHSAA will hold the Class A softball semi-state here on June 2.
This is a result of an agreement between the city and the Community Schools of Frankfort which happened a little over two years ago.
“What was kind of a rough field, the city said let us put some money into that so that we can use it during the summer and you guys can use it during the spring,” said DeWeese. “That put us over that threshold. Now, we’ve got two really good fields and that makes the IHSAA really look at us closer.”
DeWeese was asked if school officials ever thought about the possibility of hosting any IHSAA events when they began the $30 million renovation project at Frankfort High School.
“Not at all,” said DeWeese. “We were putting all of our energy really into what was going to make the school last for another 35 to 50 years. We were thinking about using the taxpayers money efficiently and in the right way — being good stewards. But, this is almost some unintended consequences of what happens when you have a really good facility.”