Courtesy Photo Posen girls basketball coach Karl Momrik is congratulated by his players after earning his 250th win as a coach last week in Onaway.

POSEN — 100. 200. 250. 251.

For Posen head coach Karl Momrik, the wins keep stacking up for what has been a career chock full of championships, milestones, and yeah, even a mid-game heart attack.

Momrik joined the 250 career win club last week with a win over Onaway and won his 251st with a Division 4 district semifinal win over that same Onaway club Wednesday.

It is picking up win 252 he is most concerned about though.

“The kids want it, so you want it for the them more than anything,” Momrik said ahead of Friday’s district championship game against Inland Lakes. “Districts are a fun time. There is a lot of excitement that goes throughout the school at this time.”

While his focus may be on the district final, that doesn’t mean that he has forgotten about the path that has taken him to this point. With a career 251-78 record, 11 North Star League championships, eight district titles and one regional title, how could he?

“It is special, more than anything because it has been done at a school that typically has only 65-to-75 students,” Momrik said. “We are averaging 17 wins a year in a regular season that is only 20 games long and sometimes shorter. That is amazing and a testament to the great players that we have had come into our schools. (Assistant coach) Kevin Romel has been with me since day one and (assistant coach) Eric Hincka has been with me for a couple years now and they have just been a huge help to our program and we appreciate that.”

The 1974 Posen graduate remained in the area through the late 70s, having brief stops as Posen’s freshman coach and junior high coach. From there he spent about 10 years working at nuclear power plants across the country, and from 1990 to 2005 he lived in Las Vegas, where he worked for a college scouting service, was a card dealer at the Flamingo Hilton and a Casino Detective.

After returning to the area after a 25-year absence, he planted himself right back into coaching, guiding Rogers City’s junior varsity boys’ team for their 2006-07 campaign.

The head varsity girls’ coaching gig opened up at Posen after that season and he has since turned the Lady Vikings into what some view as one of the best small school programs in the state.

“It was a difficult decision for me to make because I really enjoyed that year I had coaching at Rogers City,” Momrik said. “I was encouraged to come to Posen because they had a bright future there and when you are basketball coach, coaching JV, it is hard to turn down a varsity job when it is offered to you. It was a difficult decision, but I knew I was making the right move.”

That first year at Posen, his team went 9-11. The following year the Vikings went 17-3 and won the North Star League championship.

“Things just took off from there,” Momrik said.

At what was perhaps the programs’ peak, from 2010 to 2014 the Vikings rolled to a jaw-dropping record of 91 wins and seven losses. That stretch featured well documented runs of 50 straight regular season wins, 59 straight NSL victories and a 44-game home winning streak; capped with the program’s only regional championship in 2014.

“That (sustained success) is what you shoot for,” Momrik said. “But no coach is going to win without the players, nobody can coach for so long without having great teams.”

Flash forward to March 2022 and things are still rolling along pretty well for Momrik. This year’s Viking team has amassed a 19-1 record and was ranked ninth in the final Division 4 polls. They recently won their fifth straight NSL Little Dipper championship and a win Friday would make it three straight district titles.

“Inland Lakes will be playing at home and is a real tough team, we know we are going to be in for a battle,” Momrik said. “We think it is going to be a great game, it could go all the way to the wire. We feel we are ready for it.”

Win number 252 would put them into next weeks’ regional tournament at Rogers City, where the Vikings would hope to get Momrik wins 253 and 254.

Which of course begs the question, just how high does the veteran coach see his win total counting up to before he calls it a career?

“If you’re talking about the possibility of hitting 300 (wins), that is a milestone few coaches reach,” Momrik said. “It is not going to be the end of the world if I don’t hit that though. I suffered through two heart attacks 12 years ago, you don’t take it year by year after that. You take it day by day and assess at the end of the year. I have asked people for advice on that and they have said that I will know when it is time to go. I will continue coaching as long as I continue to enjoy what I am doing and I am in good health.”

With taking things a day at a time in mind, and his team on what he hopes is the cusp of another trophy-winning moment, Momrik remains adamant as ever that this was never about him.

“We have a bunch of great players who would love to get that district title and move on to regionals,” he said. “I just want it for the town and for the kids more than anything.”