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Delta girls basketball has found its next leader, and he has already hit the ground running in building a foundation for the next generation of Eagles.
Mitch Waters was officially approved as the next Delta girls basketball varsity head coach by the Delaware Community Schools board on Monday, May 4, returning to the East Central Indiana girls basketball coaching scene after five years leading the Blackford Bruins from 2018-23.
"Delta seemed like a really good fit because it's a great community," Waters said in a phone interview with The Star Press. "It's got great community backing. It's got a lot of success, not just girls basketball success, but success in general. I just felt like Delta was a great opportunity, even though they lost five great seniors, to build something special for long-term success."
When Waters first took over at Blackford, the Bruins were coming off a 1-21 season in 2017-18. After another one-win season in his debut year, Waters led a quick turnaround with 10 wins in each of the next two seasons and a 17-6 record in 2021-22. In Waters' final season at Blackford, he coached the Bruins to a 20-4 record and had them ranked amongst the top teams in the state with a star senior duo of Olivia Leas and Liv Waters — Mitch's sister.
More: Top-two battle doesn't go Yorktown softball's way in regional final
More: Delta baseball tops Connersville for sectional championship three-peat
Family obligations forced Waters to step away from coaching for the last three years. His stepdaughter, Alysia Mann, was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and Waters and his wife, Angie, decided to move back to Portland from Hartford City in order to help her get to and from cancer appointments and take care of their grandkids. Mann passed away on February 14, 2025.
"I've always enjoyed coaching, and I didn't really want to step away from Blackford at the time when I had to, but obviously, something like that is way more important than coaching basketball," Waters said.
After he stepped down at Blackford, Waters' daughter, Emma, took up an interest in basketball, so he has been coaching her AAU team in Jay County for the past few years, where he also works at the Jay Community Center.
While working there, Waters became friends with Tyronda Benning, who served as a referee at the community center before starting her own coaching career. Benning, of course, has coached Delta for the last three years, leading the Eagles to three consecutive county championships and their first regional title in program history. After stepping down from the job in April, Benning will leave the program in the hands of a good friend.
"The ironic and great thing is, I'm great friends with Tyronda," Waters said. "We actually communicated back and forth at times throughout seasons. I kind of felt like maybe I was a little bit of a mentor because she was a basketball referee for me at the community center prior to her coaching career, so I knew her very well, and she had great success with those kids."
As Waters looks to sustain that success, he has already put forth efforts to ramp up Delta's numbers for the upcoming season — not just on his varsity roster, but throughout the elementary and middle school teams as well. He envisions 15 or 16 girls on the varsity roster and a team for each grade division at the elementary level, rather than mixed third-fourth and fifth-sixth grade teams.
"I've already talked to coaches and got them in place for each individual team, so we're kind of ready to go on that," Waters said. "Hopefully, we can grow the numbers in the feeder, so if we can establish that, I think that's major success on both ends in terms of the team and in success individually."
Waters' first Delta roster will look quite different from the team's Benning took to new heights, as the Eagles are graduating five players that make up perhaps the most successful senior class in program history — Elizabeth Bamidele, Addy Barnes, Jillian Barr, Griffyn Knight and Olivia Marshall. Even with returning contributors like rising senior Harper Timmerman, rising junior Ja'Niyah Johnson and rising sophomore Jacquelyn Linn, Waters plans to emphasize that nothing is given and that they will have to earn their minutes.
"The biggest hurdle for me is, I think the winning pedigree is there for the kids, and I think it's going to be a matter of making sure that the upcoming kids don't feel entitled just because they were part of a team that had so much success," Waters said. "Ultimately, those five seniors were kind of the main driving force, so it's easy to think that being on the team that you deserve this and that and it's going to be easy because you were on the team when it happened.
"But until you actually get on the floor and make things happen yourself, they're going to have to earn it for sure."
With so much production to replace, expectations may not be as high for Delta as they have been over the last two years, but Waters is confident he can lead the returners through a competitive schedule and continue competing for championships.
"I'm hoping that, obviously, we have a winning season," Waters said. "We still have a pretty difficult sectional, we had a difficult conference, and our schedule is still pretty solid as well. If we can finish with a winning season, I think that's a big plus after losing that many seniors that were so good. I do think we have a lot of capable players that have just kind of been sitting in the shadows waiting for their time to shine, and I think that hopefully we can shock some people and do some things people weren't expecting."
Contact Cade Hampton via email at [email protected] or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Mitch Waters hired as next Delta girls basketball head coach
Continue reading...
Mitch Waters was officially approved as the next Delta girls basketball varsity head coach by the Delaware Community Schools board on Monday, May 4, returning to the East Central Indiana girls basketball coaching scene after five years leading the Blackford Bruins from 2018-23.
"Delta seemed like a really good fit because it's a great community," Waters said in a phone interview with The Star Press. "It's got great community backing. It's got a lot of success, not just girls basketball success, but success in general. I just felt like Delta was a great opportunity, even though they lost five great seniors, to build something special for long-term success."
When Waters first took over at Blackford, the Bruins were coming off a 1-21 season in 2017-18. After another one-win season in his debut year, Waters led a quick turnaround with 10 wins in each of the next two seasons and a 17-6 record in 2021-22. In Waters' final season at Blackford, he coached the Bruins to a 20-4 record and had them ranked amongst the top teams in the state with a star senior duo of Olivia Leas and Liv Waters — Mitch's sister.
More: Top-two battle doesn't go Yorktown softball's way in regional final
More: Delta baseball tops Connersville for sectional championship three-peat
Family obligations forced Waters to step away from coaching for the last three years. His stepdaughter, Alysia Mann, was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and Waters and his wife, Angie, decided to move back to Portland from Hartford City in order to help her get to and from cancer appointments and take care of their grandkids. Mann passed away on February 14, 2025.
"I've always enjoyed coaching, and I didn't really want to step away from Blackford at the time when I had to, but obviously, something like that is way more important than coaching basketball," Waters said.
After he stepped down at Blackford, Waters' daughter, Emma, took up an interest in basketball, so he has been coaching her AAU team in Jay County for the past few years, where he also works at the Jay Community Center.
While working there, Waters became friends with Tyronda Benning, who served as a referee at the community center before starting her own coaching career. Benning, of course, has coached Delta for the last three years, leading the Eagles to three consecutive county championships and their first regional title in program history. After stepping down from the job in April, Benning will leave the program in the hands of a good friend.
"The ironic and great thing is, I'm great friends with Tyronda," Waters said. "We actually communicated back and forth at times throughout seasons. I kind of felt like maybe I was a little bit of a mentor because she was a basketball referee for me at the community center prior to her coaching career, so I knew her very well, and she had great success with those kids."
As Waters looks to sustain that success, he has already put forth efforts to ramp up Delta's numbers for the upcoming season — not just on his varsity roster, but throughout the elementary and middle school teams as well. He envisions 15 or 16 girls on the varsity roster and a team for each grade division at the elementary level, rather than mixed third-fourth and fifth-sixth grade teams.
"I've already talked to coaches and got them in place for each individual team, so we're kind of ready to go on that," Waters said. "Hopefully, we can grow the numbers in the feeder, so if we can establish that, I think that's major success on both ends in terms of the team and in success individually."
Waters' first Delta roster will look quite different from the team's Benning took to new heights, as the Eagles are graduating five players that make up perhaps the most successful senior class in program history — Elizabeth Bamidele, Addy Barnes, Jillian Barr, Griffyn Knight and Olivia Marshall. Even with returning contributors like rising senior Harper Timmerman, rising junior Ja'Niyah Johnson and rising sophomore Jacquelyn Linn, Waters plans to emphasize that nothing is given and that they will have to earn their minutes.
"The biggest hurdle for me is, I think the winning pedigree is there for the kids, and I think it's going to be a matter of making sure that the upcoming kids don't feel entitled just because they were part of a team that had so much success," Waters said. "Ultimately, those five seniors were kind of the main driving force, so it's easy to think that being on the team that you deserve this and that and it's going to be easy because you were on the team when it happened.
"But until you actually get on the floor and make things happen yourself, they're going to have to earn it for sure."
With so much production to replace, expectations may not be as high for Delta as they have been over the last two years, but Waters is confident he can lead the returners through a competitive schedule and continue competing for championships.
"I'm hoping that, obviously, we have a winning season," Waters said. "We still have a pretty difficult sectional, we had a difficult conference, and our schedule is still pretty solid as well. If we can finish with a winning season, I think that's a big plus after losing that many seniors that were so good. I do think we have a lot of capable players that have just kind of been sitting in the shadows waiting for their time to shine, and I think that hopefully we can shock some people and do some things people weren't expecting."
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Contact Cade Hampton via email at [email protected] or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Mitch Waters hired as next Delta girls basketball head coach
Continue reading...
