AKRON – The record just keeps skipping in this series. The annual regular season finale for the two programs had Tippecanoe Valley beat Wawasee 53-42 Friday night, serving as a familiar precursor of things to come.

The two teams, which have met in the final game of the pocket schedule since 2002, have held their cards close to the vest for the past seven years. In six of those occasions, the two have played one another in the sectional tournament, four of those times in the first round immediately after playing the weekend before. With another meeting set up in the opening round of next week’s Wawasee Boys Basketball Sectional, Valley hopes the tides continue to turn as they did Friday.

Valley has won three of the last five matchups in the sectional, the two teams not meeting in 2012 and Valley winning three of the last four. Since the 2010-11 season, Valley is 9-4 against Wawasee in regular season or postseason matchups.

Friday’s matchup had Alec Craig take over for the Vikings. The streaky shooter went 10-20 from the floor and finished with a game-high 32 points. His 30th point in the fourth quarter was the nail in the coffin. With Valley up just 47-41 and Wawasee with possession, a trap near the top of the key had Valley get the steal and shuttle the ball to Craig, whose layup was the four-point swing that never had the game get any closer.

“He’s had a couple games in the 30s, and is capable,” Tippecanoe Valley head coach Bill Patrick said. “He shot the ball well tonight and he obviously was ready to play. He is capable of scoring 30 or 40 points on any given night. I thought he played hard tonight and his shot selection was good. He just played obviously one of his best games of the year.”

Wawasee had its output Friday come largely from Trevon Coleman, who finished with 18 points on a 6-7 shooting performance. Coleman had six rebounds, but also had six turnovers, which was to the larger point by Wawasee head coach Jon Everingham, whose team committed 16 turnovers to just the four giveaways by Valley.

“Believe it or not, there were just a few possessions that we are really going to have to take a strong look at,” Everingham said. “Bill Patrick is known for his 1-3-1, and they only played it about three possessions. But we struggled in those three possessions. So, I think I’m really going to have to dissect the game and find out what we can do a better job in and some of the things that we have to clean up. Obviously, the ball handling, when the turnover ratio is 16 to 4, we gave them 12 extra possessions it’s hard to beat anybody.”

The Wawasee JV finished on a high note, beat Valley 50-27. Ryan Edington went for 16 points and Austin Miller scored 12 points to lead the Warriors. Jace Potter had six points to lead Valley.

The night also featured the honoring of Patrick in his passing of Pat Rady for second all-time on the career wins list. Patrick got win No. 762 on Feb. 2 against Wabash, and currently has 765 wins, only behind Jack Butcher’s 806 wins. Lawrence North’s Jack Keefer is the next highest active coach with 758 wins and J.R. Holmes at Bloomington South has 757.

“I really didn’t want to take away from the game, the game is for the kids,” Patrick said of his recognition. “It’s nice, I guess, to get recognized. That’s something that was secondary. I was hoping it wouldn’t take away from the game. We got a little bit of a late start, I tried to talk Duane into not doing it and keeping it really, really short. You want the kids ready to play, and I think they were ready to play. It was senior night and those things maybe might have helped a little bit and instead of hurt it.”

Wawasee (5-17) and Tippecanoe Valley (10-13) will meet Tuesday at 6 p.m. followed by NorthWood (20-2) facing Lakeland (8-14). West Noble (8-14) will get the Wawasee-Valley winner in Friday’s first game at 6 p.m. while Fairfield (11-12) will meet either NorthWood or Lakeland in Friday’s second game. The Wawasee championship game is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday evening.