BORDEN/NEW PEKIN Ind. (WDRB) — Two small Indiana high school fan bases put their rivalry aside to cheer each other on to state championship victories.

At Saturday's IHSAA Girls Basketball State Championship games in Indianapolis, Borden High School and Eastern High School (Pekin) both played in the morning session.

Borden defeated Fremont, 51-31, to become back-to-back 1A state champs.

Two hours later, Eastern took down Oak Hill, 50-32, to win the 2A championship for just the second state title in school history.

The schools are only six miles apart and compete in the same conference.

"The administration at our school, the administration at their school knew that when both of these teams got there, we were going to root for one another no matter what," Borden Athletic Director Toby Cheatham said.

That's when they devised a plan to do something in solidarity. They couldn't all wear the same color because Borden is red and black and Eastern is purple and yellow, so they bought towels.

"We bought 250 towels, they bought 250 towels and the rest is history," Cheatham said.

It created a special moment between both fan bases. With about four minutes left to go in Borden's game, both fan bases stood up. The Borden fans stood waving purple towels, and the Eastern fans stood waving red towels.

"The moment in Borden's game when both sides were standing up, waving their rally towels, that was special," Eastern coach Taylor Drury said.

The support didn't end there.

Borden's band couldn't make it because they were performing somewhere else. When Eastern's band director, Matt Lindley, found that out, he asked Borden if his students could play for them as well.

After getting permission, they decided to go to Indianapolis early and show their support while wearing red.

"A little bit strange to wear red instead of purple, but other than that it's what we do," Lindley said. "We love to cheer, we love to support our team and be local and be loud and that's what we got to do for Borden."

To top it all off, the two schools even share an athletic trainer, Kacey Kaelin.

"I mean, yeah we won, it was phenomenal to win, it was amazing but just to see everybody come together and me being kind of basically in the middle of both of them, it was great to see," Kaelin said.

Now, both communities get to come together and celebrate two state titles.

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