They reached the top of the prep basketball world just a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
But Monday evening, Kentwood girls basketball coach Keith Hennig and wife Wendy, the team\u2019s assistant, announced they were stepping away from the program after six years.<\/p>\n
The demands of raising two young children \u2013 3-year-old Trevor and 1-year old Brady \u2013 along with working full time and coaching one of the state\u2019s elite programs wasn\u2019t easy and factored into the decision to step down, Keith admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough for a family,\u201d said Keith, who noted that he and his wife had made the decision before the season began. \u201cSometimes we\u2019re getting to bed at 10 o\u2019clock and we find ourselves going through McDonald\u2019s at 9:30 at night \u2026 it\u2019s tough for kids this age. You throw in two people who are working full-time jobs and it really stretched both of us at both ends.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really tough decision. Wendy and I have put a lot of time and effort into this program. I think we did it the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed. Because in six years, the Hennigs guided the Conquerors to a 136-25 overall record, four straight South Puget Sound League North Division titles, two district crowns and two top-three finishes at state.<\/p>\n
But the capper came on March 7, when Kentwood knocked off Snohomish 60-47 for the Class 4A state championship. The win culminated a 28-1 campaign and was Kentwood\u2019s first-ever state championship on the girls basketball court.<\/p>\n
It was the perfect finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess if you plan to go out \u2026 you couldn\u2019t script a better ending for leaving,\u201d Keith said. \u201cOn the same end, we know there\u2019s a heck of a lot of talent in this program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a replacement isn\u2019t going to be an easy task, Kentwood athletic director JoAnne Daughtry noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really hard. Especially considering Auburn Riverside, Sumner, Lindbergh, Kent-Meridian and Steilacoom just in the last week are looking for girls basketball coaches,\u201d Daughtry lamented. \u201cHe\u2019s done an amazing job \u2026 it\u2019s a huge loss to our program and to our school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They reached the top of the prep basketball world just a few weeks ago. But Monday evening, Kentwood girls basketball coach Keith Hennig and wife Wendy, the team\u2019s assistant, announced they were stepping away from the program after six years. The demands of raising two young children \u2013 3-year-old Trevor and 1-year old Brady \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":13141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13140"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}