REINBECK – First-year head coach Brett Bengen helped his alma mater get back to the state tournament for the third year in a row.

He’s in for a much more challenging encore.

The Gladbrook-Reinbeck basketball team graduated four starters and 86.7 percent of its scoring from last year’s squad, leaving the Rebels with substantial holes to fill in all areas of the game.

Bengen, whose team went 23-4 and advanced to the Class 1A state semifinals before bowing out, sees plenty of need in replacing a six-person graduating class that tasted nothing but success on the basketball court.

“This year there will be some new challenges,” said Bengen, a 2009 G-R grad. “We only return one starter from last year’s team and our sixth man. I’m looking forward to start working with these guys. There’s not a lot of experience but there are a lot of guys that will be competing for minutes this year.”

Lockdown defender Hudson Clark started all 27 games for the Rebels last season, averaging 4.7 points and a team-leading 1.8 steals per game. Trevor Mathern started once and played in each game, contributing 3.8 points per game.

They’re the only two returning players who saw real meaningful minutes. Senior Thomas Keller played in 18 games and Dreyson Morgan played in 13, while sophomore Kooper Larsen saw the court in 11 games.

Fellow returners Brayden Utter, a junior, and sophomore Bennett Sieh saw limited action.

Bengen is eager to find out how much greater the whole can be compared to the sum of its parts.

“We are going to be led by our seniors Hudson Clark and Trevor Mathern,” Bengen said. “I’m excited for them to get a lot of these guys going in practice and showing them how to practice hard. We’ve got senior leadership and guys that want to compete day-in and day-out.

“With us being young and inexperienced, our key to success is going to be trying to improve every day we step out on the court.”

The Rebels trailed only Grundy Center in the NICL West Division a year ago, but Bengen isn’t sure what to expect from a super-conference schedule this winter.

“The NICL is always competitive and I expect nothing different this year,” he said. “There’s a lot of good coaches and a lot of talented teams and individual players. It should be very exciting.”