LAPEL — Sometimes, success can breed new issues.

In this case, the success of the Lapel football team is creating some issues for boys basketball season.

Lapel basketball coach Jimmie Howell has done what he could to somewhat alleviate any rush for athletes to switch from one season to the next by rearranging the schedule to better accommodate things.

“Three years ago, we played on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving,” Howell said. “I switched that to the Saturday after, so that if we have a (football) team win the sectional the kids that play football can get two weeks of practice in.”

Six of Lapel’s top eight on the basketball team were suiting up in helmets and shoulder pads this past fall. But now, Logan Ingle, Ryan Scott, Micah Walls, Evan Roberts, Brandon Freeland and Chandler Guion have traded in their cleats for high-tops and joined Michael Pritchett and Jeremy Reed and the rest of the Bulldogs basketball squad for the 2008-09 season.

“We had our scrimmage last week, and we could only use five guys because the others only had five practices in,” Howell said. “We start the year on the road (tonight at Elwood), the first three will be tough and I’m telling the kids, ‘We’re dealing with some adversity early. But hopefully by dealing with it early, we’ll be able to handle it as the year goes on.’”

Ingle and Pritchett each averaged around 13 points a game last season. Ingle pulled down six rebounds a game a year ago. The Bulldogs graduated three starters in Trent Crandall, Seth Bays and Brooks Busch.

Reed and Guion — both sophomores — as well as Scott, Ingle and Pritchett will be counted on to provide a scoring punch at any time this season.

“We’ve got several kids that can score. I expect any of these kids to score 20 point at some point this season,” Howell said. “But we’ve got to continue to develop the other areas of our game as well.”

The Bulldogs will open the season with three straight road games, beginning with tonight’s game at Elwood. The next two games will be a set of back-to-back games next Friday Dec. 6 at Wapahani and Madison-Grant, respectively.

“Elwood is a veteran club,” Howell said. “They improved as the year went on last year and were playing some good ball.”

Another highlight on the Lapel schedule is a Dec. 27 matinee-date with Tri-Central at Conseco Fieldhouse, site of Lapel’s 2005 Class A state championship victory. The Bulldogs will be taking part in the Ivy Tech Christmas Classic.

“We’re looking forward to that,” Howell said, “but at the same time we’ve got to take it one game at a time and we’ve got to applied what we’ve learned (in practice) in the games. I think we have more kids working hard this year than ever before.”

This season also marks Lapel’s final go-around as members of the White River Athletic Conference, which the Bulldogs won a year ago with a 4-0 league mark.

“We’d love to win it again. That’s one of our goals,” Howell said.