Feature photo of the Kouts Boys Basketball Team celebrating semi-state taken by Lynn O'Hara.
What’s recently happened?
Kouts High School’s boys basketball season is coming to an end soon, but this year’s season is definitely a prosperous one. The team has recently won sectionals against Washington Township with the final score of 67-53. Towards the beginning of the game, Kouts fans were biting their nails as Kouts was down in the first half. Coming back from halftime with a fresh perspective, they pushed hard and were able to beat Washington by 14 points.
The team continued-on to play in the regional championship. The first game was against Fremont, where Kouts was up by 20 points in the first half. Fremont came back, but never dominated the scoreboard with a serious advantage. Kouts luckily won that game 66-62, earning them a spotlight to play in the championship game against Triton.
The Triton game was very intense as Kouts seemed to be an equal match with Triton. Soon though, Triton was no competition for Kouts, and Kouts won the regional championship game 56-42.
Kouts then advanced further, playing in the semi-state championship game at Lafayette Jefferson against Southwood Junior-Senior High School. This game was also a nail-biter; all throughout the game, both teams were competing for the lead in points, but Kouts pulled through in the second half and gained an advantage.
Kouts saw the light at the end of the tunnel and kept about a 10-point gap in between them and Southwood. Chants of, “I believe that we will win!” from the Kouts Pep Block encouraged the team to stick with it. Much to the Pep Block’s satisfaction, they were able to win the semi-state championship for the first time in Mustang history with a final score of 86-70.
Catch the state championship game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse or on a livestream from RRSN on April 3 at 10 a.m. CST.
Student spotlight
One student at Kouts High School that is very creatively involved is Senior Mady Collins. Collins is a part of both the Jazz Band and the Concert Band at Kouts and has been playing the flute for both groups for all four years of her high school career. She enjoys embroidering, listening to music, and is obsessed with collecting Squishmallows. Collins has collected 16Squishmallows so far and is planning on continuing to collect more.
As for academics, Collins is definitely not falling short. She has a 3.93 grade point average, and is in the top 10 students of her class. Some impressive classes she is currently taking include AP Physics and AP Biology. Collins was inducted into the East Porter County Honor Society during her junior year, and she has also been in the science bowl since her sophomore year. On top of all that she is involved in at school, Collins has also picked-up a job at Currie Motors Ford of Valpo this year.
Collins has a bright future ahead of her, and she plans to take advantage of that future. She will be attending Trine University in the fall to study forensic sciences.
Teacher spotlight
One teacher at Kouts that loves making memorable connections with his students is Tim Schwartz.
As for academic background and work experience, Schwartz got his bachelor of science in industrial engineering from Purdue University, as well as his master of business administration and teaching degrees from Indiana University Northwest. Before coming to Kouts, he worked for various manufacturing companies in Michigan City and Valparaiso as an industrial engineer for 25 years. He then started teaching at Kouts in 2008.
Schwartz wasn’t always a teacher. While he was working for manufacturing companies, he was coaching his sons’ youth soccer teams and was also very involved in his church.
In 2007, he felt that a career switch was needed and that the Lord was pushing him to become a teacher so he could work with the youth full-time. So, he went back to college and graduated with his teaching license, specifically for mathematics. He pursued a job at Kouts High School and has been working there ever since.
Schwartz coaches the Girls Varsity Soccer, Middle School Girls Soccer, and JV Girls Basketball Teams. Outside of school, he enjoys spending time with his dogs, reading, and watching the occasional Netflix binge. He has two sons, Nathan and Austin, as well as two dogs named Amber and Cinder.
Schwartz teaches math classes at Kouts. Those include algebra lab, algebra II, precalculus/trigonometry, and AP calculus. Schwartz loves making positive connections with his high school students.
“Some of my favorite challenges are those students that have had a tough time with math during their school career,” Schwartz said. “My goal is to explain the material in a way that they understand it. There is no greater reward than the moment a student gets it.”
What’s coming up?
All of the students at Kouts got through last week as fast as they could as spring break has arrived. Many students are going to interesting places over spring break. One popular destination students are going to is Florida, but there are also a variety of other places here and there.
“My family and I are going to Tucson, Arizona. First, we’re going to visit the Grand Canyon, and then we’re going to visit my grandparents at their condo and hang out there,” one student said.
Other students will be staying in the Region for spring break though, enjoying the crisp spring air that is slowly coming our way.
“I guess I’m going to chill at home, because my friends won’t take me with them,” a student said.
School starts back up on March 29, but for now, Kouts students will be enjoying their break.