Much of the credit for Columbia City's first win can go to a former Warsaw player/coach, John Snyder.

Snyder played high school basketball under coach Al Rhodes for three years and was a Tiger assistant coach for eight years. He lives in Columbia City and works for the school, so when athletic director Geoff Penrod asked him if he was interested in being the junior varsity coach, he said yes.

"It was difficult for me to coach at Warsaw," he said. "I enjoyed coaching, but timewise and driving, it was hard."

Chris Benedict had been named the varsity coach. Snyder had never met him before, but after several long talks, they discovered they shared the same philosophies on building a good basketball program.

Snyder took the job.

"I thought since I'm part of this community now, I should be committed to these kids," Snyder said.

Snyder, standing at the edge of the floor after Columbia City's 66-57 win over Whitko, talked about his first night as a coach at a place different than Warsaw.

"In some ways, this is more exciting, because this is the start of something new," he said. "Over there, we're trying to build something for a lot of years. We were trying to fit the pieces together, build upon what the other guys have done.

"Now, we've taken these guys from scratch and beaten Whitko. I don't know how long it's been since they've beaten Whitko. That's an important step for this program to take at the start, competing and beating these kids who for years have beaten Columbia City."

A big reason why Columbia City won was the play of its post people, 6-4 sophomore Jason Elkins and 6-4 senior Chris Joy, two players Whitko never found a way to contain. Elkins started and scored 16 on 6-of-9 shooting from the field. When Benedict took him out, he brought in Joy, who scored 12 on 4-of-5 shooting from the field.

Snyder played the post at Warsaw, so he's spent time working with these two players. The work paid off in the first game.

"They will get better before the year is up," Snyder said. "We do a lot of the same things that we taught the post men at years at Warsaw. The basic moves, how we want to attack the basket. It's nothing new and it's nothing profound, but it works.

"Elkins has a pretty good understanding of the game. His drawback is he's not very athletic. Again, you don't have to be real athletic to position yourself and score effectively in the post."

Snyder was asked if the showing against Whitko was a fluke or if the Eagles are for real.

"This is a program that's been down for a lot of years," he said. "I think 10 games is the most they've won in years. If we play night in and night out where we take care of the basketball and play good defense, we're going to play with a lot of people. I think we could sneak up on some people.

"Hopefully, there will come a time when people come in here and it will be like going in to the Tiger Den." [[In-content Ad]]