Matt Carpenter enters his second season in charge of the Wawasee girls basketball program. Practice for the 2017-18 girls basketball season opens on Monday.

WARSAW – Are you ready for some basketball?

Lenny Krebs sure is.

The new Warsaw girls basketball coach is itching to get going as “official” practice tips-off Monday for high school ladies across the Hoosier State.

Krebs takes over the Tiger program after spending the past 14 seasons in charge at Goshen. He replaces Michelle Harter, who resigned in March after going 136-70 in nine seasons. Harter, a former standout player at Wawasee High School and Huntington University, was hired in June as the new girls coach at Evansville Central.

The energetic, passionate and classy Krebs, who played at Fairfield High School and Grace College, is anxious to get the ball rolling.

“Is it Monday yet?,” responded Krebs via email last week. “I am so excited for the first practice to get here. We have been working hard and looking forward to this day for so long. Every season begins with a new sense of excitement as you start the journey of another season together.

“This move has energized me again. Change has a tendency to do that. It almost feels like I have an opportunity to be a first-year coach again, but I feel I am a little wiser from my previous 14 years. Basketball practice Eve and Christmas Eve seem to generate about the same amount of excitement in the Krebs household. I am sure everyone in my family is getting tired of me talking about the upcoming season.”

Krebs, who was hired in April, inherits a team that will look vastly different than the one from a year ago. Warsaw, which went 20-4 overall and  5-2 in the NLC, graduated six seniors. The Tigers lost a wealth of experience, including four of their top five scorers. The duo of Dayton Groninger and Madi Graham accounted for 1,686 career points. Groninger, who is now playing at Indiana Wesleyan University, finished sixth all-time in program history with 1,003 points.

Krebs, though, says forget about the rebuilding talk when it comes to his program.

“As an opposing coach for the last 14 years, I can tell you that last year in February, we were glad to see people like Dayton Groninger, Page Desenberg and Madi Graham graduate,” noted Krebs. “They are great players who make playing a team like Warsaw a tough task. However, now the being the head coach at Warsaw, I can tell you that there is a load of talent in this program and there are some amazing players who will step up and carry on the great tradition of the Warsaw Girls Basketball program.

“I do not consider this to be a rebuilding year. And the girls do not expect this to be a rebuilding year. Expectations have not changed just because of the graduation of key players from the previous year. We are not rebuilding. We are continuing a great tradition established by the previous players and coaches.”

The Tigers, who lost to Northridge in the sectional to end the 2016-17 campaign, are counting on the likes of Kacy Bragg, Kaylee Patton, Kennedy Patton, Nicole Ryman and Emma Bohnenkamper to lead the way for a young, but talented group this season.

Chris Kindig has guided his Tippecanoe Valley team to 72 wins in the past three seasons.

Another area team that will have a different look this winter will be Tippecanoe Valley. The Vikings, who won 72 games the past three seasons, will be missing some key pieces. The major one that is gone is star Anne Secrest. The humble, hard-working and selfless Secrest finished her career first in school history with 1,586 career points and is now at Youngstown State University.

Valley coach Chris Kindig, who guided the Vikings to a Class 3-A state runner-up finish in 2015, does have plenty of talent to work with though. Valley, which has lost in the regional each of the past two years and has went undefeated in the TRC each of the last three seasons, welcomes back Sophie Bussard, Addy Miller and Emily Peterson as key returnees from a 22-5 tam.

Wawasee will look to make improvements under second-year coach Matt Carpenter. The Warriors, who went 10-13 overall and 4-3 in the NLC a year ago, graduated four seniors, including top scorer Aubrey Schmeltz.

NorthWood returns a strong core for coach Adam Yoder. The Panthers went 16-10 overall and 4-3 in the NLC last season and are slated to return Savannah Feenstra and Riley Hershberger among others.

Triton had just one senior a year ago in posting an 8-15 overall mark for coach Adam Heckaman. The Trojans won the Hoosier North Athletic Conference title with a 6-2 mark in league play and should be led by the duo of Hannah Wanemacher and Nichole Sechrist.

Individual team previews of all the local girls basketball teams, including Warsaw, Tippecanoe Valley, Wawasee, NorthWood, Triton and Lakeland Christian Academy, will appear on the IFN site in the coming weeks prior to the start of the season.