New season, new coach for Tomales basketball

When the balls start dropping through the net in the Tomales High School gym this winter, there will be a new man in charge, hoping to bring some stability to a program that has been struggling to compete as the school’s enrollment continues to shrink.

Tyler Reynolds, an enthusiastic 25-year-old from Indiana, takes over a team that was 3-20 last season. Before the first practice, he says things are looking up.

“At our first meeting we had 15 players,” he notes. “I hope to get 17 or 18 by the time practice starts.”

He acknowledges that many of those are basketball inexperienced. Several he recruited from the baseball team he helped coach, along with Tyler Walters last spring. He says the future looks even brighter. “We have good athletes, but they haven’t played much basketball,” the new coach says. He also notes that Tomales has a good crop of freshmen athletes who could eventually benefit all of the school’s sports teams.

Reynolds moved to Petaluma from Fort Wayne, Indina after playing four years of tennis, basketball and baseball at Indiana Tech. When long-time Tomales baseball coach Bill Tucker resigned, Reynolds applied for the position. Walters was hired, with Reynolds becoming an assistant coach. In effect, the two have worked as co-coaches with Walters, a former college third baseman, working with the position players and former pitcher Reynolds coaching the mound crew.

One thing Tomales basketball fans can expect from the new coach is a team that will run, run, run.

“Playing an up-tempo game is very important to me,” he says. “Conditioning will be very important.”

His love for the running game stems from his own high-school days when he played for what he called, “the fastest team I’ve ever seen.” He hopes to carry that philosophy over to Tomales.

Reynolds is anxious to get started.

“It’s a new year, with a new coach. It’s going to be fun,” he says.

Reynolds works for Dairymen’s Feed & Supply Co-Operative in Petaluma. He has a bachelor of science degree from Indiana Tech and is very close to obtaining his teaching credential. Once he gets his transcripts to find out just how close, he will finish his credential work at Sonoma State with plans to become a physical education teacher.

Working, going to school and coaching two sports is quite a work load, but he has confidence and high hopes for restoring Tomales basketball to positions of prominence in the North Bay small school sports world.