TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Indiana State head women's basketball coach
Vicki Hall filled the final vacant spot on her staff with the hiring of
Chris Souder as an assistant coach Friday.
Souder comes to Terre Haute following almost three decades as a high school girls coach in Kentucky, including nearly two decades as a head coach.
"Chris has a great mind for the game," Hall said of her newest assistant coach. "He has a proven track record of winning and developing players. He also brings recruiting connections in Kentucky which will help Indiana State in many ways."
He brings a championship pedigree to Terre Haute with him. The two seasons prior to joining the collegiate coaching ranks, Souder led Mercer County (Ky.) High School to back-to-back state championships in 2017 and 2018.
"After 29 years as a high school basketball coach I am extremely blessed and excited to get an opportunity to join Coach Hall's staff at Indiana State University," Souder said of his appointment. "This is dream come true to get an opportunity of this magnitude I am excited to become a Sycamore! I was able to end my high school coaching career on top with back-to-back state championships and I am looking forward to continuing to compete for championships."
In all, Souder claimed two state titles as head coach at Mercer County from 1999 to 2018 along with three other Kentucky Sweet Sixteen appearances (2003, 2015, 2016), reaching the final four in 2016. That came out of him leading his team to a district title in 17 out of his 19 years leading the Titans.
But championship trophies are not the only hardware with which Souder is familiar. He was Kentucky's 2017 Coach of the Year, claimed Kentucky's 12th Region Coach of the Year Award in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008 and was inducted into the Kentucky Association of Basketball Coaches (KABC) Court of Honor in 2018 while also receiving the 2018 KABC Century Award after claiming his 500th career win.
Prior to his nearly two decades at Mercer County, Souder guided Danville (Ky.) High School in a pair of seasons in which Danville defeated Boyle County High for the first time in school history and witnessed Danville player Brooke Dunn have her jersey retired – the first jersey retirement in school history.
Souder graduated from Lindsey Wilson College in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in elementary education. He is married to the former Carmen Claunch and the couple have one daughter, the soon-to-be Carli Ingram, and a son, Connor.
For the latest information on the Sycamore Women's Basketball team, make sure to check out
GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including
Facebook,
Twitter and
Instagram.
