By Brad Morris
SportingPumpkin.com
Mike Schultz described the last two weeks as a “whirlwind”, and with summer basketball right around the corner that pace likely won’t slow down for some time.
And the 12-year basketball coaching veteran is just fine with that.
Pending approval by the Logan Elm Board of Education at its June meeting, Schultz will become the next head girls basketball coach for the Braves.
“There was a lot of uncertainty when the job came open, so I put together a game plan of what my vision is for the program and presented it to the interview committee. I wanted them to understand the love I have for the game of basketball and for Logan Elm,” Schultz said. “Everything came together, and I am thankful the committee has put my name before the board to lead our girls basketball program.
“The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind and now I am hitting the ground running. I met with the girls earlier this week to talk about my vision and expectations for them, and now I am putting together a staff and getting a summer schedule together with open gyms, practices and getting our girls out to some good shootouts.”
Schultz, 53, was an assistant coach last year in the Amanda-Clearcreek girls basketball program. Prior to that, he served as a varsity assistant under former Logan Elm girls basketball coaches John Denen and Tom Congrove for four seasons.
The 2023-24 season will be his first as a head coach after 12 seasons at Adena, Logan Elm and Amanda-Clearcreek.
Schultz discussed his vision for the program, which includes having a “drive for excellence” on-and-off the hardwood.
“We want to create a drive for excellence every time we are conditioning, practicing, putting in a scouting report and how we compete on game night,” he said. “We also want to have that culture off the floor, extending into the classroom and the type of people that we want to be in our everyday lives.”
The Braves had just eight players in their high school program a season ago. With six returning players and the incoming freshmen class, Schultz believes the Braves will be able to reinstitute a junior varsity team for the 2023-24 campaign.
“We talked to our girls about recruiting their classmates, because we know there are some kids who have played in the past that are no longer playing,” Schultz said. “With the numbers we are projected to have, we should be back to having a junior varsity team, which is an important part of our program.
“Having a junior varsity team gives more girls an opportunity to compete and play, and it also helps develop talent for the varsity program so we can try to maintain a successful program.”
The Braves are coming off a 4-19 season, when they often started four freshmen.
Senior Enaja Fischer and junior Hannah Rhoads are slated to return and lead the team, which includes sophomores Kimmy Petty, Kiki Ingram, Claire King, Kennedy Groff and the incoming freshmen class.
“We’re going to depend on Enaja and Hannah for leadership and I know they can both be good contributors to what we want to do this season,” Schultz said. “I talked with our incoming sophomores about how they are now experienced players since they played a lot as freshmen and what the next step for them is going to be. Obviously, that’s a very athletic and skilled group with players like Kimmy Petty, Kiki Ingram, Kennedy Groff and Claire King.”
“We return most of our team, but so does most everyone else in the Mid-State League Buckeye Division. Obviously, some good players graduated, like Abbie Riddle at Liberty Union, Emily Buckley at Amanda-Clearcreek and Morgan Blakeman at Circleville, but there is a lot coming back and coming up in the league.”
Schultz discussed the identity that he wants the Braves to have on both ends of the hardwood.
“We have some height with Claire King, but this is mostly a guard-oriented team, and we want to get out and use our skill, speed and quickness to get the ball up-and-down the court and take advantage of the opportunities that we have,” he said. “Claire is going to help us rebounding and changing some shots with her presence. Overall, we’re going to be a scrappy team defensively and we want to dictate what the other team is going to do by having a proactive approach and having good scouting reports that we work hard to implement.”
The Braves are slated to open the season on Nov. 28 when they host Washington Court House.
