ELKHART – A familiar face has been tabbed to direct the fortunes of the Elkhart Memorial boys basketball program.

Kyle Sears, a former standout player for the Crimson Chargers, has been hired as the new head coach.

Sears, who has spent the last six seasons as an assistant coach in the program, replaces Mark Barnhizer.  Barnhizer resigned in April after going 103-75 the last eight seasons at EMHS.

The 30-year old Sears, who teaches Math at EMHS, is a 2002 Memorial graduate. The 6-5 forward scored 1,417 points in his high school career. He then went on to play at Bethel College and later with the Elkhart Express. Sears was an assistant coach at Elkhart Christian Academy prior to returning to his alma mater.

Sears father Craig is the head softball coach at Memorial. His younger sister Allison, who was a three-sport star at Memorial, is an assistant coach in both the softball and volleyball programs at EMHS. His younger brother Sean is an assistant baseball coach at Concord High School.

Memorial has finished 8-13 each of the past two seasons. The Crimson Chargers went 4-3 in the Northern Lakes Conference during the 2013-14 campaign.

Memorial is slated to return its top three scorers next season in seniors Dimitri Giger and Courtney Maxwell and junior A.J. Gary.