On a chilly, overcast night, the Wayne boys track team won its first team title since 1996 Thursday at the Wayne Regional.The host Generals had 80 points to slip past runner-up Carroll’s 75.FORT WAYNE – After 14 years and four state championships as the girls basketball coach at Canterbury, Scott Kreiger is moving over to be the boys coach at the school.
Kreiger was 251-88 as the girls coach, winning Class A state titles in 2008, ’09, ’10 and ’12 and was the coach of the Indiana Girls All-Star team this year. He replaces Dan Kline, who stepped down after two years as the Cavaliers’ boys coach. Kline led the program to its first sectional title two seasons ago and the first regional title this season.
“I have been interested in coaching boys for a long time but the timing or circumstances were never quite right,” Kreiger said. “When Coach Kline resigned, I looked at it again, and the timing and circumstances seemed to be much better, and I threw my name into the ring. There are different things that figured in, but the timing seemed to match up a whole lot better this time.”
Kreiger, 47, has spent 28 years coaching girls basketball.
There will be plenty of talent for Kreiger to work with, as the boys program returns seniors Trent Van Horn and Chase Moyle and junior Grant Sinn. Senior Austin Hatch, a Michigan recruit who was seriously injured in a plane crash last summer and did not play in the 2011-12 season, could also return. The Canterbury boys fell in the school’s first semistate appearance 63-58 to Rockville.
“Coach Kline did a great job of putting this group together,” said Kreiger, who sat on the bench Tuesday during a Canterbury boys game in the Fort Wayne Parks and Rec league. “I always enjoyed sitting around after our practice and watch them practice just because of the way they played the game. (Kline) laid the groundwork for some really great things. Hopefully I can step in and maintain that success and maybe even build on it.”
Kreiger steps away from a girls program that will return four of five starters from a team which beat Northeast Dubois 64-54 in the Class A state title game in Terre Haute in April.
“It was as difficult as you might imagine,” Kreiger said of the decision.
“I don’t think there would ever be an easy time to make a decision like that. I have been doing this a long time, and I don’t know how much longer I will be a coach.
“I thought if I was going to do it, now was probably the time to go ahead and try.”
Canterbury said in a news release it will conduct a search for its next girls coach.
