Senior guard Morgan Herbert thinks it could be a positive sign – some kind of crazy omen – that her Rushville basketball team will be coming to Fort Wayne to play in the state championship game instead of playing it in Indianapolis, which is only 40 minutes away.

As far as Rushville’s team is concerned, today’s 6 p.m. matchup against Fort Wayne’s Concordia for the 3A title could be Divine Providence itself climbing onto a bus and riding shotgun for 2 1/2 hours for the sole purpose of making the trip home that much sweeter.

The reason for the lack of panic and/or grousing about the trip north is because Herbert and four of her best friends and classmates know all about winning championships in Fort Wayne.

“Us five seniors kind of had our start there,” Herbert said. “We played on a traveling AAU team and we used to play at Spiece Fieldhouse. We won four state titles and two nationals, so we have had some success there. It seems like a good sign to us. It’s kind of cool to have your start there and finish there.”

The high school team hasn’t done badly, either.

Rushville (25-2) comes in as the No. 1 team in 3A with an 11-game winning streak in search of the school’s first girls basketball championship. The fact that they are playing Concordia (23-3) in essentially the Cadets’ backyard doesn’t make any of the Lion eyes blink.

“We’re just glad to be here,” 10th-year coach Melissa Marlow said. “We don’t really care, and the kids don’t really care where it’s at; we’re just happy to be here.”

This journey that will end one way or another in Fort Wayne has been a long time coming, Herbert said, if not a long time planning.

“It was our last junior high game, and we lost,” Herbert said. “We were like, ‘We hate this feeling, and we never want to end our career on a loss.’ So us five seniors were in the locker room, and we made a pact that in our senior year we would go to the state finals, and we promised each other that we’d win.

“That’s the team goal we had in eighth grade, and so far we’re holding up our bargain.”

Those five eighth-graders who are now seniors are Krista Beaman, Kayla Niehoff, Kaleigh Andrews, Alexa Bess and Herbert. All but Beaman average in double figures in scoring.

And leading them is Marlow, whose Rushville team lost in the semifinal round of the state tournament 15 years ago.

Since then, she has returned to her alma mater – not only as coach, but also as the school nurse.

“When I got my nursing degree, the school nurse’s job opened up at the middle school, and once I got the head coaching job they moved me to the high school so I could interact with my players,” Marlow said.

It’s a bonus, Herbert said.

“If anyone goes down (with an injury), coach Marlow will be sprinting over there,” Herbert said. “She’s always the first responder since she’s already on the floor.

“Sometimes it’s kind of funny, though. You can’t fake injuries because she’s a nurse. If you want to get out of sprints, you really can’t. She’s like, ‘Oh, let me see that ankle.’ There’s no way around that.”

stwarden@jg.net