Greensburg Daily News

 

Staff Report
Greensburg Daily News

Although the Greensburg girls basketball season has come to an end, it continues for senior Sara Welage. She has recently been notified that she was selected to participate in the IHSAA Indiana Girls North-South All-Star Classic for the 2008-2009 season. She is one of 24 girls in the state, representing the South, who will play in this All-Star classic sponsored by Hoosier Basketball Magazine.

“It was quite an honor for her to be chosen. We’re very proud of her,” said her mother Sandy Welage. “We got the letter notifying her (of her selection) last week. It was the first we heard of it.”

The North-South series began 20 years ago and the purpose was to create a statewide All-Star series to showcase Indiana’s best senior basketball players. The series also serves as a set of scrimmages to assist coaches in the selection process for the prestigious Indiana-Kentucky All-Star series.

In that span of time, the Indiana All-Star series has included some 380 players and 50 coaches who subsequently participated in the interstate rivalry.

Last summer, Welage was selected as one of the IHSAA Top-100 girls. As one of the selected players, she participated in drills and scrimmages to improve and to showcase her skills before an audience including college basketball recruiters.

The additional work over the summer provided the ground work that aided the Lady Pirates to have their most successful season with a record of 19-3 as well as EIAC co-champions, Tree-City Classic championships and the runner-up spot in Sectional 28 play.

Individually, Welage played four years of varsity basketball and started three years. She split time between the varsity and reserve squads to get playing time her freshman year. In addition to winning runner-up honors, Welage was a starter on 2008’s Sectional championship team - the first in Lady Pirate history.

Coach Mike Miller was glad to see his three-year starter recognized.

“I’m really glad to see Sara get recognized. Being in the Top -10 in so many categories is a good indicator of her ability. She was a three-year starter and a three-time All-Conference player. We were 48-19 with a bunch of championships with her here,” he said.

Welage placed in the Top-10 on the Lady Pirate honor rolls in steals, assists, 3-point percentage and scoring. In her career, she scored 861 points and she converted 36 percent of the long-range shots.

When she gets to the practice site she will find two players that she played against during the Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference season. Batesville’s Amy Wuesterfeld and Franklin County’s Hope Grimmeissen were also chosen to the All-Star team.

The game will be held at Batesville High School on April 5, 2009. The girl’s game will begin at 2 p.m. and it will be followed by the boy’s game.