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Prep Sports Notebook: Code steps down as Brossart boys basketball coach after 18 years with program


By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter

The Bishop Brossart boys basketball team started preseason practice Monday without Mike Code, who spent the last 16 years as head coach of the Mustangs following two years as an assistant coach in the program.

Code, 51, said he told the Brossart players last Wednesday that he would not be returning and his younger brother, Scott, was being promoted from assistant to head coach.

Mike Code

Code has been a health teacher at Highlands High School ever since he started coaching at Brossart. He said splitting his time between two jobs at two schools has become more difficult, partly because he’s teaching a second-level health class that was added to the Highlands curriculum.

“We always tell (our players) as student-athletes, being a student comes first.” Code said. “I kind of feel like the same has to be true for a teacher-coach. You have to make sure you’re doing the job in the classroom first. To be able to give what I want to give to both jobs, for the first time ever, I felt like I couldn’t do it.”

During his 16 years as head coach, Brossart had only one losing season and compiled a 303-151 record. His teams won the 10th Region All “A” Classic 12 times and won the small-school state tournament in 2007.

Last season, the Mustangs posted a 25-7 record after losing in the semifinals of the 10th Region Tournament. Two of the top three scorers on that team are returning this season.

“I really wanted to keep coaching,” Code said. “But after going back to school and trying this for two, three or four weeks teaching in a mask, I mean, it’s exhausting, especially when you go six straight hours. By the end of the day, you’re pretty much wiped out.”

Code said it was a personal decision to step down as coach and focus on teaching amid the current COVID-19 crisis.

“Highlands has been wonderful with everything through out the years in helping me with my situation and to continue to coach at Brossart,” Code said. “It was just going to be really, really difficult to pull all that off, especially in a year like this where you have no idea what it’s going to look like.”

Highlands cross country runner has history of success in state meet

Highlands senior Maggie Schroeder will compete in her final Class 2A girls state cross country meet on Friday after posting the fastest time among the seven regional qualifying meets for that class.

Maggie Schroeder

Last Saturday, Schroeder’s winning time in the Region 4 meet at Mason County was 18 minutes, 51 seconds over 5,000 meters. None of the other six regional winners in Class 2A cracked the 19-minute mark.

Courses and weather conditions are different at each regional meet, so it’s hard to single out a favorite going into the season’s grand finale. But Schroeder does have an impressive history of success in the state meet.  After finishing seventh as a seventh-grader in 2015, she placed fifth, second, first and 10th over the last four years.

Schroeder became her school’s first individual state champion in cross country as a sophomore in 2018, but health problems plagued her last season. After not being able to run in the regional meet, she did return to the lineup one week later and finished 10th in the state meet.

This year’s state meet will be held at Bourbon County High School with the Class 2A boys and girls races on Friday and the other two classes on Saturday. Last month, Schroeder set a personal record at an invitational meet on the Bourbon County course with a time of 18:13.

Brossart senior picks up another 10th Region Player of the Year award

Brossart senior Marie Kiefer was named 10th Region Player of the Year in volleyball, the same award she won in basketball last February.

The 6-foot-3 middle hitter finished her final volleyball season with 372 kills in 64 sets for a 5.81 average. She also had 64 solo blocks and 179 digs to earn the region’s top award from the Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association.

Kiefer was named 10th Region Player of the Year in basketball for averaging 17.9 points and 10.2 rebounds last season. She accepted a basketball scholarship from Ball State University in August.

Lucy Trump of Ryle was named 9th Region Player of the Year in volleyball by the state coaches association. Coach of the Year awards went to Amy Marx of Simon Kenton in the 8th Region and Jill Hunt of Holy Cross in the 9th Region.


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