Published by The Evansville Courier

By that time the Washington Hatchets had plucked the prize three times (1930, '42, '43) and the Alices of Vincennes had one (1923) with John Adams their coach. Bert Friddle guided Washington to its first championship and Marion Crawley notched the back-to-back titles.

Bosse finally broke this city's state drought, sweeping consecutive championships under coach Herman Keller in 1944-45. Broc Jerrel, a ball-handling whiz, Norris Caudell, Jack Mathews and Bud Ritter led the point parade for the Bulldogs in their 1944 championship win over Kokomo, 39-36. Jerrel scored 11 points, Caudell 10, Mathews eight and Ritter seven.

Jerrel scored 60 points in the four-game semifinals (now known as the semistate) and finals while Ritter scored 38.

Bosse bounced South Bend Riley, 46-36, in the 1945 title game with Ritter scoring 14 points, Norm McCool 13 and Jerrel eight.

The All-State team annually selected by the Indianapolis News carried a distinctly southern flavor. Bosse's Caudell, Jerrel and Ritter were among the five receiving the honor and Jasper forward Tom Hoffman was another.

In 1949, Jasper grabbed the brass ring under the tutelage of Leo "Cabby" O'Neill, one of that town's basketball legends. His top guns were Bob White and Jerry Stenftenagel. The Wildcats held off Madison 62-61 in the championship game.

Jasper's White (second) and Stenftenagel (fifth) were among the top five scorers in the semifinals and finals with 59 and 40 points, respectively. Both were selected on the News' All-State team.

Jack Schneider, a Courier sportswriter of the 1950s, was on that team early in the season. But when the Wildcats lost four or five games, he decided it wasn't going anywhere and left to report games for the Jasper Herald.

He later hooked on with The Courier and taught its sports staff how to spell Stenftenagel by chanting "STEN-FTEN-AGEL."

The staff always became entangled while trying to spell correctly the German names of Dubois County players while taking calls over the phone on "Frantic Friday" nights.

One player from that neighborhood even called the following week, asking about the write-up of a player from Holland who had a terrific game the previous weekend.

"Was that me?" he inquired.

One of the staff looked up the game report. "Did you score 25 points, get 15 rebounds and make the winning shot?"

"Yep, I sure did all those things," he confirmed. "But I couldn't tell it was me after reading the story. The way the name was spelled wasn't close to mine."