Dennis, Wauconda emphasize fresh start

A picture — the 2010-11 team photo that Wauconda coach Jaime Dennis showed her girls basketball team on the first day of practice last week — was worth a thousand words.

Plenty, anyway.

Ÿ Two-time North Suburban Conference Prairie Division champions.

Ÿ Three straight 20-win seasons.

Ÿ Varsity basketball experience galore.

Ÿ Successful, multi-sport athletes.

“That was a lot of experience coming back every year,” Dennis said of a squad that included Tammy Ellis (four seasons on varsity), Melanie Prudhomme (three), Roslyn Summerville (three), Cara Nance (two), Maggie Sarich (two) and Diana Enriquez (two).

“It allowed us to do a lot more. This year we’re kind of starting from scratch. No one person is going to fill any of those shoes that left us. It’s going to have to be a whole team effort.”

So, with senior guard Enriquez the Bulldogs’ only returning starter this season, Dennis had a job for her team before it took the practice court.

“We started off by throwing away that team,” Dennis said. “We all took our turn crumpling (the team picture) up, tearing it up, throwing it away.”

Not exactly “trash” talk.

The Bulldogs, respectfully, decided they were moving forward.

“It changed their attitude completely,” Dennis said. “They came in practicing with a different attitude and (understanding) that it’s OK for them to not be that other team, and let’s start building from here and create our own thing.”

Wauconda opens its season Monday night at home against Crystal Lake Central.

Lukemeyer takes over: At Grant, Matt Lukemeyer has replaced John Eiduke as head coach, with Dave Behm replacing longtime assistant Ron Duros, who retired.

Lukemeyer is a 2003 Grant graduate and a year younger than Behm.

“I’m really excited about it because we’ve been buddies since before high school,” Lukemeyer said.

Lukemeyer, a social studies teacher at his alma mater, was the freshman girls coach the last two years and before that served one season as assistant sophomore coach.

During travel baseball one summer years ago, Lukemeyer was playing for Lake Villa, while Behm was pitching for Grant.

“He struck me out my first at-bat,” Lukemeyer said. “My second at-bat I hit a double off him.

“The next year we were teammates.”

The two friends still have fun trash-talking each other.

“He always says that he struck me out four times,” Lukemeyer said with a laugh. “I always say I hit four doubles off him.”

This is not the first time the two longtime friends have coached together. The last two springs, Lukemeyer has been the sophomore baseball coach, while Behm has served as varsity coach. They’ve coached sophomore football together, too.

Balaban joins Lakes: Former Lake Forest coach Nick Balaban is serving as Pete Schneider’s varsity assistant at Lakes.

“Awesome. I absolutely love Nick,” Schneider said. “Nick brings an incredible amount of talent and energy. He’s a hard worker and he knows what it takes to run a varsity program. He can take a kid and go on the side and work on shooting. That kind of stuff. It’s been a blessing.”

Gofron mending: Antioch will start the season without senior guard Lindsey Gofron, who’s been a varsity starter since her freshman year.

Gofron tore her left Achilles tendon last spring playing AAU basketball and underwent surgery April 19.

She’s back practicing but not going too hard.

“She’s slowly working her way back,” Sequoits coach Tim Borries said. “I’m hoping (she’ll be back by) conference time.”