WIXOM — Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski might be the winningest basketball coach of all time, but he’d be no match for Steve Larkin on the “coaching happiness” scale.

“I’ve never been this happy coaching,” Larkin said a few Friday nights ago, moments after his team was trounced 51-19.

A 2001 grad of Novi Detroit Catholic Central and coach the past five winters of the girls varsity team at West Bloomfield High, Larkin has gone down to the depths as coach at St. Catherine of Siena Academy.

“I want to start something from scratch,” he said.

There aren’t many scratches on the brand-new all-girls high school — the first in the Archdiocese of Detroit in 50 years — that opened its doors in the fall of 2011 to a sparkling $35 million, 137,000-square-foot, 33-acre complex at the intersection of Napier Road and Grand River in Wixom.

Enrollment this year is 92 freshmen, sophomores and juniors. Next year the 10 juniors will compose St. Catherine’s first senior graduating class.

“I’m never disappointed with their effort,” Larkin said about his squad of 15 players, who are playing on the varsity level for the first time in the Catholic League’s West Division. “I can’t wait to get back to practice Monday.”

At the season’s midpoint, the Stars are 5-6 overall, but 4-1 in the CHSL, a game behind Clarkston Everest Collegiate, who administered the 51-19 shellacking.

Everest coach Erin Van Wagoner said her squad was “at the same place a couple of years ago” as St. Catherine. Everest, with an enrollment of 111, welcomed its first class of students five years ago.

Everest admissions director Maura Plante pointed out that last spring’s first graduating class of 17 seniors had received $1.8 million in scholarships. In addition, Everest was named one of the 50 top Catholic high schools in the country last fall by the Cardinal Newman Society, one of five in Michigan so honored.

Plante, who has met with St. Catherine’s administration several times to share Everest’s experience, said the quality of the academic program is the prime concern of parents and one of every new school’s formidable recruiting challenges.

St. Catherine’s admissions director, Antoinette Lloyd-Evans, acknowledged Plante’s observation.

Noting that St. Catherine’s enrollment has doubled every year of its existence, she has set an ambitious goal for the upcoming fall of 108 freshmen, more than doubling the current head count.

Athletic director Bruno Fernandez is expanding St. Catherine’s athletic program in step with its growing enrollment. The lineup has volleyball and cross country in the fall, basketball and competitive cheer in the winter, and softball and tennis in the spring.

Softball has already made its mark in St. Catherine’s athletic lore. A year ago, three days before the start of the junior varsity season, only three girls (out of a then-enrolled 47) had signed up to play.

Dr. Bob Green, a parent, volunteered to coach. “We recruited girls to play, many of whom didn’t even know the rules of the game,” Fernandez said.

In an ending even Hollywood would think improbable, the team went on to win its first 16 games and the eventual CHSL West JV championship.

Yes, follow the Stars over Wixom.