When Larry Kincaid applied for the head girls’ basketball coaching position at Genoa High School in the late 1980s, he was told that the Comets had never had a winning season.

“They had a hard time finding a coach,” Kincaid recalled, “so I felt I didn't have anything to lose.”

The Comets' sub-.500 seasons ended the same year Kincaid was hired, in 1987. He coached at Genoa for five years, culminating with the 1991-92 season.

“I think we won 12 games my first season,” Kincaid said. “The next season we won 16 and then 21, and then we won 20 the next year and 17 my last year.”

Kincaid turned the Comets into a team to be reckoned with in the Suburban Lakes League. How tough was the SLL back then? Genoa's 1989-90 team took second in the league behind Eastwood yet the Comets still reached the Division III regional finals.

The Comets finished 18-2 during the regular season behind the play of Lisa Witt, Amy Sander and Kristi Koester, who later received a scholarship to Bowling Green State University. Genoa lost the regional final to Coldwater, which went on to claim the state championship.

“We lost by 16, but it was four-point game with four or five minutes left,” Kincaid said. “Coldwater had a lot of depth and they put four or five guards in the game and just stalled, then they drained their foul shots. We had them that close.”

Genoa beat out coach Phil Boze's Lakota Raiders for the SLL championship in both 1991 and '92, and Kincaid then called it quits.

“All five of those years were great,” he said. “For me, winning 12 games wasn't a success but we built on that. I never had any problems with the girls. Once they got a taste of success, they were very good. The parents were very good...

“The league as a whole was very competitive, with very highly qualified coaches. Genoa was my first experience as a varsity coach. To coach against (Lakota's) Dick Heller and (Eastwood's) Jim Gracyk and Phil Boze, that just helped me out tremendously. It was a very tough league. Woodmore, with (coach) Mark Slates, they were very competitive with us. We had some really tough teams in the league.”

Kincaid said one of the big reasons Genoa became an SLL contender after he took over was because the players made a year-round commitment to the program.

“Every coach will tell you, it was the offseason,” he said. “We got the kids in the gym in the summer and got them in summer programs. They had never done that before at Genoa. When I first started, my first open gym I had two girls show up – Lisa Witt and Amy Keaton. I was like, 'whoa, this has to change.'

“I got on the phone and made a lot of calls. I said I can't require you to come to the open gyms, but I said the seniors and the upperclassmen need to be there. If you show up, if you're a freshman and you're better than a junior who hasn't worked hard or shown any leadership, the freshman takes over. Same with the sophomores and seniors.”

Genoa went 14 years before winning another league title, in 2007 under Tom Kontak, but Kincaid didn't leave the cupboard bare. He was succeeded by one of his assistant coaches, Les Wyse, who guided the Comets to SLL runner-up finishes behind Gracyk's budding powerhouse Eastwood teams in 1993 and '94.

Genoa, Eastwood and Lakota tied for second place behind Woodmore in 1995. Three years later, Chris Mathews took over as the Comets' coach, replacing Bob Brown.

By that time, however, nearly every team in the league except Elmwood had fallen behind Eastwood. After finishing second behind Lakota in 1998, the Eagles reeled off six SLL titles in the next eight years.

Mathews' teams were competitive, but the highest they finished in the SLL was third in 2000. Mathews coached the Comets through the 2003-04 season.

“I thought the league was very competitive from top to bottom,” Mathews said. “Every game was just a battle, whether you were going against Eastwood or anybody else. There really weren't any wins you could just chalk up before you stepped on the floor. You had to win it every night out.

“Eastwood and Woodmore, because they were so close, were definitely our rivals. Everyone looked up to Eastwood because everyone knew they were the team to beat.”

The SLL championship trophy will be awarded for the final time at the end of this season. Six of the seven teams currently in the SLL are leaving for the newly-formed Northern Buckeye Conference next season.

Rossford and Fostoria will also be in the NBC, while current SLL member Gibsonburg will play in the Toledo Area Athletic Conference.

“Remembering back when I was coaching, Gibsonburg had some nice teams and some nice players like Heather Hill,” Mathews said. “For some of the smaller schools, things run in cycles. You hate to see things come to an end, but with Rossford and Fostoria coming in, it will add some athleticism to the (new) league. I think it's a positive for the league.”

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