Lanesville High School girls basketball preparing for state championship game

LANESVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- After a few years of knocking on the door, the Lanesville High School girls basketball team are going to the IHSAA Class 1A state final for the first time in school history.

"We have fallen short in recent years but this year we finally got past that regional wall," senior forward Linzie Wernert said. "And there have been a lot of fun things that came with it."

And they're taking the whole community with them.

"I feel like everybody's always telling you 'congrats' or 'good luck this weekend' or 'I'm going to the game,'" sophomore point guard Hadley Crosier said. "It's really exciting to have all these people behind you."

"There's so many people who are like 'We've had our hotel booked since before regionals,'" Wernert said. "We're just like 'Thanks for the confidence. I guess.'"

Much of the confidence in the program comes from having coaches who have been down this road before.

Angie Hinton coached at New Albany for 11 years, winning a state title in 1999. Her husband and longtime assistant, Joe, is in the Indiana High School Hall of Fame with nearly 600 wins on the boys side, most of them at Floyd Central. Their daughter, Hallie, makes it a full family affair.

"I really don't know too much of what it's like not to coach," Angie said. "I took a little bit of a hiatus in there. It was for the kids but then the kids wanted to play so I may not have been head coach but I was their head coach at a youth league somewhere so pretty much that's been our whole life."

The Hintons took over a Lanesville program five years ago coming off 12 straight losing seasons. And the players certainly seem to enjoy having them as coaches.

"We'll get texts from Angie at 2 a.m. with motivational stuff or just like little video scouting clips," Wernert said. "They put in the work and they expect us to and we do."

"They're so in love with basketball," Crosier said. "It's their everything. It's really special to be able to play for somebody who has such a passion to stay up and watch game film, to do everything for their team and for their kids. You know they care a lot and it means a lot because you want to do well for them because of how much work they put in."

"It's what being in education and sports is all about," Angie said. "That relationship with the people, with your kids. Seeing them make those strides and becoming good people, good citizens that will come back. And they will give back to the community just like it was given to them."

Lanesville (27-2) plays in the title game at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Indianapolis against Bethany Christian (24-3). Their neighbors from Corydon Central (27-2) are in the 3A title game at 6 p.m. against Fairfield (27-2). And Bedford North Lawrence (26-3) plays for the 4A championship at 8:15 pm against Fishers (26-2).