Paula Krueger has resigned as the head girls basketball coach at ThunderRidge. (Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
ThunderRidge girls basketball coach Paula Krueger has resigned to accept a job at Northern State University, Grizzlies athletic director Sean Patterson said on Thursday.
Krueger played at the Division II school in South Dakota, and was inducted into Northern State’s Hall of Fame in 2005. She has previously been a graduate assistant at Northern State from 1995-96.
Northern State advertised an opening for a full-time assistant earlier this month.
Krueger joined ThunderRidge just two seasons ago, taking over for longtime coach Bill Bradley, who led the program from 2003-13. (Bradley recently accepted the head job at Monarch after two seasons in Tennessee.)
And she had a lot of success — Krueger’s teams were 42-10 in those two years, including 25-3 last season. The Grizzlies, a No. 1 seed, reached the Class 5A championship game in the winter, losing to Broomfield.
“(It’s a) big loss for us,” Patterson said on Thursday.
Krueger was the head coach at the Colorado School of Mines for nine seasons before coming to ThunderRidge.
While there, she led the Orediggers to the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2009-10, as well as their first RMAC championship (2008-09). She is the winningest coach in program history at 133-125.
ThunderRidge will begin a search for a replacement shortly, Patterson said.
The Grizzlies will return their two leading scorers next season in Taylor Rusk (14.0 points) and Jaz’myne Snipes (11.9), who will both be seniors. Rusk was a first-team all-state selection in 5A.