Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – As the spouse of a coach Betsy Kern is familiar with the importance of putting together a game plan.

So, when her husband and third-year West Branch coach Jason Kern entered the season just 10 wins shy of the century mark for his career Betsy Kern had a plan in place.

When Kern notched career victory number 99 with a come-from-behind win over his alma mater Mid-Prairie on January 8 Betsy put her game plan into action.

She created a banner to celebrate win number 100 that she hoped would come in just a few days.

Then, like it has so many times over the past 10 months the pandemic threw a wrench into those plans.

Covid issues caused West Branch go into quarantine on January 13 putting the season, Kern’s drive toward 100 career wins and his wife’s plan on pause.

“My wife knew I was close and she had made a sign and everything because our next game was supposed to be like three weeks ago,” Kern said. “She has this big plan that she was trying to hide it at home.”

Since returning to the court on January 28 the games, and the wins for Class 2A No. 10 West Branch (15-1) have piled up in a hurry.

Kern got career victory number 100 in the first game back, a 56-37 win at Tipton that was his 54^th game on the West Branch sideline.

“I just wanted to get it out of the way so I didn’t tell any of our kids about it or anything,” Kern said of win number 100. “It’s a good milestone but you can’t get that done without great players over the years and all the assistants that have had a great impact on me and all my mentors as well.”

The win over Tipton started a wild stretch in which West Branch played five games in six days at it attempted to make up games postponed earlier in the month.

West Branch went 4-1 during that stretch with the lone loss a last-second 53-52 setback at Wilton on the fourth game in five days.

“We didn’t really celebrate because we were getting ready for a game the next day,” Kern said. “It was good to get it out of the way especially with that stretch of games coming up. It was just another game for me, it was a milestone but I don’t look at it as that.”

Kern has been piling up wins at an impressive rate throughout his coaching career.

The Mid-Prairie graduate went 56-32 in three seasons as a head coach at St. Mary’s High School in Louisiana before taking over at West Branch prior to the 2018-2019 season.

Kern has gone 49-11 in three seasons at West Branch leading the Bears to at least 15 wins in each of his three seasons.

That mark includes a 44-8 record in RVC games and West Branch can lock up its first outright South Division title under Kern with a win over Regina on Tuesday, Mid-Prairie on Thursday or Monticello on Friday.

“I love coaching basketball,” Kern said. “It’s just fun to get out here and be around these kids and my coaching staff.”

West Branch faces an even more difficult stretch of schedule to close the regular season.

The Bears are scheduled to play four games in five days, a stretch that features back-to-back games with rival Regina, a trip to Mid-Prairie the team currently second in the South Division standings and a home game against unbeaten and 3A second-ranked Monticello to close the regular season.

“I think our kids have handled it really well just having that next man in mentality,” Kern said. “It’s day to day, it really is, you don’t know tomorrow we could be shut down. Our guys are just going with the flow and showing up every day ready to work just like it’s your last game because you never know.”

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