Tigers Boast Wealth Of ExperienceWith four starters back, and five of their top six players from last season, the Warsaw Tigers appear primed to make a run at a fifth consecutive Northern Lakes Conference championship.
Warsaw, 11-12 overall and 5-2 in the NLC a year ago, opened the 2017-18 season with wins over Tippecanoe Valley and Columbia City, but an inexperienced group of Tigers lost their next five games and seven of eight.
Warsaw put together a seven-game win streak, but then lost five of its last six games to end the season, including a first-round sectional loss to Goshen.
With a good amount of experience returning this season, the Tigers are light years ahead of where they were last year at this time, and when asked about it head coach Doug Ogle said “it’s just a different feeling.”
“My coaching instincts tell me that we’re going to be formidable this year, I really believe that,” said Ogle, who needs three wins to reach 250 varsity victories.
Returning starters include seniors Nolan Groninger, Tyler Metzinger and Jaylen Reese, and junior Brian Elliott.
Junior Blake Marsh, who moved up fron the JV team in December last season and worked his way into a sixth-man role, also returns.
Others on the Tigers’ 10-man varsity roster include senior Trevor Rumple, and juniors Wyatt Amiss, Connor Lennox, Jaylen Coon and Keagan Larsh.
“You can just feel it, it’s different, from the experience aspect of our team,” Ogle said of heading into Wednesday’s season-opening home game against Tippecanoe Valley.
“We’re just way more experienced. Coming into the season last year, only Zach Riley had experience, and Nolan Groninger had played. We had two guys that had played going into last year, and now we have five or six.
“We’re older, a little bit bigger, and a little big stronger.”
Riley started 22 out of 23 games last year and is the only starter lost to graduation. He averaged eight points and five boards per game.
Groninger led the team in scoring as a junior with nearly 13 points per game, while tallying five assists and three rebounds per game.
Elliott and Metzinger averaged nearly eight and seven points, respectively, and should provide a lot more offense this season.
“We think we have a chance to have a good team,” said Ogle. “Our expectation is that we’re going to be pretty solid, if we can stay healthy. I think we have a chance to have a memorable season.
“We have four really good seniors in Nolan Groninger, Jaylen Reese, Tyler Metzinger, who all started last year, and also Trevor Rumple. Metzinger has probably changed the most physically, he’s gotten bigger, he now weighs 200 pounds and is 6-8. He’s thicker, heavier, stronger, more athletic and more confident.
“Then you have Brian Elliott from the junior class who was a starter, and also Blake Marsh ... those guys played a lot.”
After Wednesday’s opener against Valley, the Tigers host Columbia City Saturday, followed by a pair of road games the following weekend at Homestead and Huntington North.
“Our schedule is good. We play Carmel (Feb. 16), who’s probably gonna be preseason No. 1 in 4A. I think Westview (Dec. 19) will probably be preseason No. 1 in 2A. And we play Homestead and Huntington North early in the season,” said Ogle.
“Of course we’re looking forward to playing Valley and Columbia City on Thanksgiving weekend, but after that weekend we go to Homestead and Huntington North. After our first four games we’ll have a good idea where we’re at.”
The Tigers open NLC?play Dec. 14 at Wawasee.
Warsaw has won 26 of its last 28 conference games.
At 5-2, the Tigers shared the NLC?crown last season with Northridge. Warsaw won the previous three conference championships with 7-0 records.
