Tipp breaks into elite company with 1,000 wins

When the season started, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the Tippecanoe girls basketball team would join elite company. When the buzzer sounded on Wednesday, February 25, at Springfield, that accomplishment came to light.

With their victory over Vandalia Butler in the postseason, the Red Devils have earned their 1,000th career girls basketball program victory. This put them in rarified air along with other girls basketball powerhouses Fort Loramie and Berlin Hiland, which the only three schools in Ohio to reach that plateau.

With the third most girls victories in Ohio history, the Red Devils and current head coach Brett Kopp credited so many former outstanding players and coaches who accomplished that feat.

“I am a very small part of this accomplishment, being my first year here, but Tipp is known around the area and state for girls athletics in general, including basketball,” he said. “Having been in District Nine for 13-14 years, I know Tom (Rettig, former Tipp coach) a little bit, and he did a great job with Tipp.”

“This is a premier job in the area, and I actually got this job and looked at all this stuff and thought we could get 1,000 wins. Not many people can say that, and it should be celebrated. It’s not just these girls. It’s also the family members of these girls who went through here and put their blood, sweat, and tears into this program. It’s a big deal that they get to share that one thing that you don’t always get to with your siblings because you may not get to play with each other.”

“Now they are all a bond of the 1,000 wins at Tipp City High School.”

Tipp has had several players honored among the best in the state during their careers. Just naming a few of the all-Ohioans who came through Tipp are the likes of Shanda Fry (1985), Jennifer Lowry (1986), Kristin Risch (1987), Leanne Eustache (1988), Lisa Eustache (1989), Sarah Gross (1991), Erin Kremzar (1995), Schelly Stahle (1998, 1999, 2000), Lauren Sharpe (2007), Leah Schiller (2009), Breana Stucke (2010, 2011), Halee Printz (2014, 2015), Carly Clodfelter (2015), Aubrey Cox (2016), Maddie Frederick (2018), Allison Mader (2018), Ashleigh Mader (2019, 2021), Kendall Clodfelter (2020), Rachel Wildermuth (2021), Mackenzie Chinn (2023), and Mader (2025).

Even with the history and success those individual players have brought to Tipp, the camaraderie this program has shown over the past 50 years has been something most programs would love to have. Even this year, Kopp said these kids are leaving their own impact on this prestigious honor.

“It is bigger than basketball, trying to leave their legacy,” he said. “I look at my own daughter and she looks up to these girls anyway. They are great kids, they do things the right way, this is just icing on the cake in the tournament, against your rival for the third time. I am not sure there is much better script-writing than this.”