EVANSVILLE — Vincennes Lincoln athletic director Chris Lancaster has nothing but respect for his colleagues within the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference.
The 1990 graduate returned four years ago after nearly two decades filling the same role at South Knox. Some aspects of the new gig were daunting, specifically weekly meetings with the rest of the conference during football and basketball season. Lancaster grew to find great value in those discussions with “a proactive group.”
One thing still hasn’t changed: Vincennes Lincoln is ready to move on.
The Alices become members of the Western Indiana Athletic Conference upon the conclusion of the 2025-26 athletic calendar. It ends a six-year stay in the SIAC that featured ups and downs, including multiple attempts to find different conference affiliation.
“Vincennes is a bit of an outlier in regard to the SIAC,” Lancaster said. “It hasn’t changed. Very positive (relationships) and great people to work with. I feel like for our kids, from a conference perspective, playing those like communities was something we wanted to get back to. It was what we had with the Big Eight.”
Assessing Vincennes Lincoln’s time in SIAC
How does the school view the previous six years? Start with the positives.
Multiple coaches who spoke with The Courier & Press viewed the competition as a benefit to competing for postseason championships. Vincennes Lincoln won seven sectional titles as a SIAC member (three straight in boys tennis) and found other individual success. Lancaster pointed to boys soccer this past fall as a prime example. The Alices won a singular conference match but defeated Gibson Southern for their first sectional championship since 2012.
Lincoln softball coach Greg Kroeger compared a recent game at Castle to the postseason saying, “If we want to make a run in the tournament, we’re going to have to beat teams like that.” Lincoln baseball coach Daniel Ashby, at the helm for three years, echoed those thoughts.
“Our mentality has been we expect to win,” he said. “We’ve probably knocked off some teams that didn’t expect us or respect us. This has prepared us in a great way in baseball. The talent level, the facilities and the coaching has only prepared us for a tournament where we have to be at our best, no matter who we play. Our sectional is brutal. I’m thankful for the time that we’ve been here.”
Levi Salters is the school’s longest tenured coach heading into his 10th year on the football sideline. He shared a similar sentiment. The competition level required his program to bring its best every week — six SIAC programs have won at least a sectional championship since 2020. The notable downside was finding the necessary depth as the smallest public school in the league. A five-way tie for second in 2023 was the only finish above seventh.
“It’s the best football conference (in the area) top to bottom,” Salters said. “You’re going to see really good competition from the kids. The coaching was very good. Most of those years we’d have one of the tougher schedules in 3A. We’ve had around 60 players the last few years. It makes it really hard for us to consistently keep our depth competitive with theirs.”
The reasons for leaving remain two-fold. Vincennes struggled to find a consistent footing on the scoreboard. It finished eighth in the All-SIAC sport standings the first four years (outside of the top five during the 2024-25 school year) with only a trio of top-three individual finishes between 2020-24. Boys basketball never finished higher than eighth.
No program won a SIAC championship until softball this spring. Lancaster understood the challenges and never judged “everything by scoreboard.” The school will continue to play at least half of the SIAC in every team sport moving forward — future baseball and softball schedules are still being worked on. Vincennes plays North in Week 7 in football this upcoming fall.
The other issue harkened back to feeling like an outsider. A smaller community with different challenges, in their mind. Vincennes attempted to join the Pocket Athletic Conference in 2022, but the move didn’t pass a PAC vote. Lancaster said during the school board meeting last year that Lincoln coaches were 11-5 in favor of finding a new conference.
“(WIC) is a competitive league and a league that faces some of the same hurdles that we do,” Lancaster said. “Some sports, the reality is, very tough. There will always be competition at the top. We’re looking forward to being a part of that. It will allow us to play some teams in our non-conference games that will prepare us for the IHSAA tournament.”
Vincennes will be one of eight schools in the WIC along with Cloverdale, Edgewood, Northview, Owen Valley, South Putnam, Sullivan and West Vigo. The conference has been in a state of flux with Brown County, Indian Creek, North Putnam and Greencastle all leaving in recent years. Cloverdale is joining the Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference in football only.
The additional travel was the biggest concern among coaches. Sullivan is the closest school 45 minutes away with most schools stretching to around 90-plus minutes. Most of the trips for SIAC opponents are 60-70 minutes by comparison. The plus is every school in the WIC is on the Eastern Time Zone.
A move to the SIAC served a purpose following the closure of the Big Eight, although everyone in charge at the time has since gone elsewhere. Vincennes Lincoln now looks forward to a new home later this summer.
“Those schools (in the WIC) kind of resemble us more,” Salters said. “Smaller school size. Smaller, rural communities. The travel will be a little more. It doesn’t affect us on the varsity level much. Those JV games will be a later night for kids. That’s an area where we’ll need parents to work with us.”
Kyle Sokeland is a sports reporter for the Courier & Press. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @kylesokeland or email at kyle.sokeland@courierpress.com.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Vincennes Lincoln reflects on end of SIAC membership era
Reporting by Kyle Sokeland, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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