BROOKVILLE — When Marty Wendel accepted his first basketball head coaching position at Ell-Saline six years ago, he did so with eyes wide open.

“I was fully aware of what I was getting into,” Wendel said of taking over a floundering Cardinals program that in the five years before his arrival compiled a dismal 13-89 record with a high-water mark of 6-15 in 2016-17. “But as far as taking the challenge on, I was young.”

“That was six years ago, I was under 30 years of age, and I had coached for five years, just not at a head varsity level. I just felt it was time for me to take a step forward and be able to run my own program.”

Head boys basketball coach Marty Wendel

Fast-forward five years to last season and Ell-Saline not only had turned the corner but finished third in the Class 2A state tournament. It was just the school’s fourth-ever state appearance.

The Cardinals capped a 22-4 season by breaking a state tournament single-game scoring record with a 109-74 third-place victory over Valley Falls.

That success has carried over to this season as Ell-Saline takes a 5-0 record and No. 3 ranking in Class 2A into Christmas break. The Cardinals were scheduled to wrap up the 2025 portion of their season at home Friday night against No. 5 Berean Academy, but the game was postponed at the last minute.

“It has been a great start,” Wendel said Wednesday, a day after the Cardinals beat Ellinwood, 61-23, for their fifth straight victory. “Obviously when you’re sitting at 5-0 with a potential to go 6-0 into break, that’s always good.”

The Cardinals are well on their way to a fourth straight winning record under Wendel, quite an accomplishment considering Ell-Saline had not reached double-digit victories since posting a 10-14 mark in 2011-12.

Not that the turnaround took place overnight. Wendel, then Ell-Saline’s fourth coach in five years, took over a team that was winless in 2019-20 and saw that streak continue with a 0-20 record in his first season. A 3-19 record followed in 2021-22, but since then the Cardinals have done nothing but win.

It started with a 13-9 record three years ago, improving to 18-5 in 2023-24 before culminating with the first state tournament appearance since the 2012 Cardinals made it with a losing record.

This years Ell-Saline team, which features five senior starters, has not had a losing record during its run, a definite source of pride.

“It has just been really fun,” said senior guard Kas Kramer, a third-year starter and one of four Ell-Saline double-figure scorers at 11.4 points per game. “We put in a lot of work to make the program what it is now. Coming in our freshmen years, we had a winning record then, and kept putting in the work to make it a better program.”

Senior guard Kas Kramer

Kramer is one of three starters back from last year’s state tournament team along with 6-foot-5 center Reese Krone and 6-4 forward Trey Williams. Point guard Collin Dent was a key reserve on that team and moved into the lineup along with guard Landon May.

Senior forward Trey Williams

“It’s huge, because they’re used to it and you have a group that has battled within the HOA (Heart of America League),” Wendel said of his veteran lineup. “If you have guys that understand how competitive the HOA is and have been in that battle and that grind on a nightly basis, it just makes your next year that much easier in that respect.”

While experience helps, the HOA remains quite a gauntlet. The league produced the top three 2025 finishers at state in champion Sterling, runner-up Moundridge and Ell-Saline, and those three remain atop the latest Kansas Basketball Coaches Association ranking in that same order.

The HOA also boasts Berean Academy at No. 5, Wichita Classical at No. 8, and Republic County at No. 9. Ell-Saline beat Republic County on Dec. 12, 59-42.

Still the Cardinals are highly motivated to not just get back to state but to reach the championship game for the first time since the 1980 team won the school’s only title.

“That’s a huge goal,” said Krone, the team’s second-leading scorer at 13.8 points per game and No. 2 rebounder at 4.8. “That’s what we work for. It’s what we practice for every day.”

Senior center Reese Krone

“But be personally, I think it’s important not to let the pressure of the end goal outshine the game ahead of us, because when you lose track of right in front of you, I think you start to lose a little bit of focus. That’s one goal we’ve learned from in football, is when you focus too much on that end goal, you start to lack in the present moment.”

The Cardinals have matched their basketball success on the football field the past two seasons, advancing to the Eight-Man I quarterfinals last month. That no doubt has contributed to a winning culture.

“It just gives this group more and more confidence,” Wendel said. “When you’re winning games on a consistent basis, that just gets instilled in you that you are a winner, and you understand how to finish games in tough moments.”

Football also has fueled the Cardinals’ fire for basketball.

“Last year when we lost to Madison (in football), we were all pretty mad about that and I think we used some of that to make it as far as we did,” said Williams, who leads Ell-Saline in scoring with 15.4 points per game and rebounding with a 5.3 average. “With the really close loss to Lincoln (this year), we’re using some of that anger to play into basketball.”

For Wendel, Ell-Saline’s continued growth from the humble beginnings of his first season serves as validation that the program is on solid ground.

“I think that’s what has been most rewarding, the change in culture and understanding that we have discipline, we have culture,” he said.