Lakeland High School now has a new head coach for their boys basketball program, the school announced Monday.
TJ Schneider will take over the reigns of the program heading into the 2023-2024 season. He replaces Chris Keil, who stepped down after his fourth season leading the Lakers, including a NECC regular season title this past season.
Schneider graduated from Lakeland in 1996 and is in his 23rd year as a Lakeland teacher, according to a press release from the school.In 2001, Schneider joined the boys’ basketball staff as a varsity assistant under head coach Tim Sirk. During his 9 years as the varsity assistant coach, the program had a record of 137-70, including 6 NECC Championships, 4 NECC Tourney Championships, and 2 Sectional titles.
During that stretch, Schneider filled in as the head coach for Lakeland over eight games, going 7-1 and winning the 2008 Sectional title game, 63-56 over NorthWood.
“I am passionate about Lakeland Schools, the Lakeland community, and most of all the boys’ basketball program at Lakeland School Corporation,” Schneider said in the school’s press release. “I owe much of my personal success to the lessons I learned during my time as a member of the basketball program.”
Schneider becomes the fifth head coach in the program since his previous tenure as an assistant coach. Lakeland went 17-7 during the 2023-2024 season, led by all-area senior Nate Keil. That 17 win mark is the best since the 2008-2009 season.
Lakeland will return a host of varsity experienced players despite losing Keil’s 20.1 points per game.
The next four leading scorers this past season were all sophomores in Kyle Hartsough, Keegan Merrifield, Keyan Arroyo and Levi Cook. They will be joined during their junior seasons by seniors-to-be Justin Carlson, Chuck Schackow and Anthony Khanchereun and sophomore-to-be Cole Riehl.
With the exception of Riehl, each of the other seven returners played in at least 19 games and all averaged over 10 minutes per contest.
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