Girls basketball: Indian Creek won’t have varsity team this season

For the first time since 1995, Paul Muchmore won’t be a varsity basketball coach.

Last week, Muchmore approached Indian Creek athletic director Ehren Mertz and said the Timberwolves’ girls basketball team – with one sophomore and eight players on its roster – should not play a varsity schedule.

This year, the Timberwolves will compete only as a sophomore team.

“It wasn’t hard because it was the right thing to do,” Muchmore said. “The one junior we had decided not to play, and that made the decision easy.”

Muchmore has been the head varsity coach since 1996, three years after the school opened. The team won regionals in 1998 and 2014 and took third in the Class 1A state tournament in 2016.

The team hasn’t had a winning season since, and numbers have been on the decline. The team played only 19 games last season as it struggled to keep enough players on the roster.

Muchmore said he has only two seasons after this one before he retires. His goal is to get the program back into the condition it was when he took over. He said he’s excited for what the season holds

“To tell the truth, I’ve probably enjoyed practice more than games here recently,” Muchmore said. “I enjoy seeing the kids grow. And it’s a lot less stress.”

Mertz, a graduate of the school and former assistant girls basketball coach, said he agreed with Muchmore that this is the best way to rebuild the program.

“It was an easy decision because it was best for the program,” Mertz said. “I’ve been doing this for 17 years, I coached for eight, and I went to school here. It killed me on the inside to do this, but it’s for the betterment of the program.”

Mertz said he’s seen a dip in girls basketball participation numbers at the high school level across the board, not only at Indian Creek.

“It’s not good here, but it’s not good everywhere,” Mertz said. “Almost everywhere numbers are dropping. I don’t know if it’s kids doing travel ball or club sports that’s pulling them away from basketball.”

Given the youth of the team, Muchmore said the players are handling the news in stride.

“I think since they’re all freshmen, they didn’t even really understand what the varsity level would have looked like for them,” Muchmore said. “I think they know in the long run this will help them. Hopefully, we can grow their confidence and keep them coming back.”

The Timberwolves were 6-13 last season and 14-16 the season before.

Muchmore said the goal for the season is to retain all nine players, grow their confidence and get them acclimated to the game at the high school level.

“I told the girls yesterday our one goal is to simply learn how to be high school basketball players,” Muchmore said. “They’re the ones coming out now and will get us going in the right direction. That’s really the key. This way they can learn instead of throwing them into the varsity level and they become overwhelmed. They can learn, grow and keep it coming along.”