The game between Indiana’s top two high school teams all season came down to a couple of possessions. Warren Central’s David Bell had the last say in the outcome.

After a Romeo Langford turnover, David Bell went coast to coast for a runner from seven feet as time expired. It gave Warren Central the 64-62 victory and a ticket to the state title game.

New Albany built an eight-point lead in the fourth quarter. It looked like the Bulldogs would salt the game away. There was no panic from Warren Central as they had been in this position many times throughout the season.

“Coach (Beyers) said at halftime that we are a second half team,” Jesse Bingham told Indiana Basketball Source after the game. “The things we do in practice are the reasons why we can maintain and increase our play in the second half of games”

Romeo Langford scored the first ten points of the game for New Albany. His incredible start pushed New Albany to a 10-2 lead early in the first quarter. It looked like Langford was going to pile up points like he did in the Richmond Semi-State against Southport in his sophomore year. Dean Tate was able to stablize Warren Central with two triples in the first period. That was a trend throughout the game.

Dean Tate’s shooting gave Warren Central energy in the second quarter. The Warriors were also physical with Langford on every drive. It led to eight fouls in the half for Warren, but it kept Langford off balanced when he got to the basket.

Junior forward Jesse Bingham was aggressive offensively in the second half. He was able to cut to the basket and score on a few occasions. Bingham scored seven of his 11 points in the second half.

“My coaches told me I was settling for the jump shot earlier in the first half when they knew my man couldn’t guard me,” Bingham said. So I tried to take advantage of what the defense was giving me.”

After a slow start to the game, Sean East found his offensive rhymth in the second half. He took some of the scoring burden off of Langford in stretches. East finished with 12 points.

Romeo was attacking the basket throughout the game, but fouls that he normally gets weren’t being called. There was some contact as Warren Central has the size and length to challenge shots, but it wasn’t enough contact that it distorted his shot tremendously.

After taking a six-point lead into the fourth, New Albany extended it to eight points about halfway through the period. That’s when Dean Tate started to make his biggest impact. The Warren Central senior made plays defenisvely and three-pointers on the offensive end.

David Bell took over where Tate left off. Bell ended up scoring six of the last eight points for Warren Central in yet another improbable comeback.

“We didn’t hit our free throws and that kind of opened the door for them a little bit,” said New Albany coach Jim Shannon. “We had a turnover against pressure where we had a five second call. That really hurt. Then at the end, we had the ball. We thought we were going to be having the ball last then we ended up turning it over.”

Warren Central is a team that thrives off of creating turnovers then scoring off of them. New Albany took care of the ball for 28 of the 32 minutes. Warren Central made those last few minutes count. By my count, Warren Central scored on all but two New Albany turnovers in the game.

Dean Tate scored 21 points to lead Warren Central. David Bell finished with 15 points and seven rebounds. Joe Rush had a big second half to tally 13 points. Jesse Bingham added 11.

Romeo Langford finished with 35 points and 15 rebounds. But, he went an uncharacteristic 7-12 from the free throw line. Sean East added 12 after a slow start. Derrick Stevenson and Julien Hunter had six points each.

Romeo Langford finishes his career at New Albany with 3,002 points. That is good enough for fourth on Indiana’s all-time scoring list.

Warren Central will face Carmel at Bankers Life Fieldhouse next Saturday for the 4A state championship.