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July 7, 2010

Wrapping up the best of the First Decade at The Current schools

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


It would be difficult to remember a year when the Cape-Atlantic League has lost so many important coaches.

Absegami's Gene Barber, the most successful wrestling coach the CAL has ever had, and Greg Goodwin, who brought girls basketball at Gami to dominance, have both stepped down as coaches. Goodwin was actually coaching the boys basketball team the last few years after stepping down as girls coach.

Both of the legendary coaches have been replaced by former Absegami athletes. Shawn Scannell, a big part of Barber's success on the wrestling mats, will take over that program. And Mike Bult, who played for the Braves in the mid-1990s and has been an assistant coach for seven years, will succeed Goodwin.

Barber ended his 500-win career with a bang, winning the American Conference and District 32 championships.

After 28 seasons, Ocean City's Trish LeFever has retired as the Raiders' field hockey coach. Her teams were 486-76-54, included 22-2 last season. She leaves having won 13 straight conference championships and having won her seventh state championship. She has 18 overall conference championships and nine South Jersey titles. In her final 13 seasons her teams won or shared the American Conference title every year, won nine South Jersey crowns and seven state championships.

LeFever has been replaced by one of her former stars, Cory Picketts Terry, who was a two-time South Jersey scoring champion for OCHS and helped Princeton reach the Final Four while playing there.

Atlantic City's Bob Weiss has retired. His 115 football wins with the Vikings is the second highest total in school history and seventh all-time in the CAL. He also took Atlantic City to its only South Jersey playoff championship. Weiss is being replaced by (do we see a trend here) a former great ACHS player, Thomas Kelly.

Two coaches who won conference championships during the 2009-10 school year have also stepped down.

Holy Spirit's Larry DiGiovanni had remarkable success, elevating the Spartans to one of the most consistent programs in South Jersey. They did so, in part, by playing a challenging schedule during the regular season. DiGiovanni coached HSHS to two overall CAL titles, seven conference championships and 10 division crowns in his 10 seasons at the helm.

No successor to DiGiovanni was named before the deadline for this paper (HSHS grad Dennis Smith, an assistant girls coach at Cherry Hill East, was la ter named).

Pat Holden led Lower Cape May to the National Conference championship in boys basketball and came within a free throw of winning the overall league title, losing the championship game to Ocean City in two overtimes. Holden, like DiGiovanni, was a talented player in the CAL, scoring 1,257 career points. He finished his coaching career among the top 25 boys basketball coaches in wins at CAL schools.

The new Lower boys coach had also not been selected when this paper went to print but the final three reportedly include a former South Jersey head coach and two former CAL star players with no head coaching experience. (Pat's younger brother, Scott Holden, a former LCMR star, was later named.)

And that is not all.

Ed Belfi has stepped down as Vineland's football coach and is being replaced by Josh Hedgeman, who had great success as a head coach at Schalick.

Oakcrest football coach Scott Parker accepted a position as assistant principal at the new Cedar Creek High School and was replaced by longtime Mainland assistant Chuck Smith, a former player for the Mustangs. Another ex-MRHS player, Tim Watson, has been named head football coach at Cedar Creek, where they will play only at the junior varsity level in 2010.

The rest of the lineup of head coaches at Cedar Creek has also been determined. Oakcrest field hockey coach Linda Brennan is the new Cedar Creek field hockey coach; Megan Hallman, who played at Paul VI and Stockton, will coach the Pirates in girls soccer; Oakcrest assistant Shawn Cohen will coach boys soccer; Lorraine Adkisson will coach both cross country teams; and Nicole Rose will be the girls tennis coach.

In winter sports, former Oakcrest star Andre Clements will be the boys basketball coach. Oakcrest softball coach Fran Raph, a former multi-sport athlete at Mainland, will be the Pirates' girls hoop coach. And John Cheatham will coach the wrestling team.

For spring sports, former Absegami multi-sport star Mike Isgro will coach the Cedar Creek baseball team. Cohen will coach softball. Bill McNally will be the golf coach. John Gazo will coach boys tennis. And Jim Erney, former girls basketball coach at Oakcrest and a football and track assistant, will coach the Pirates' boys and girls track teams.

There are always coaching changes in the Cape-Atlantic League. But going on without such major forces as Gene Barber, Trish LeFever, Bob Weiss, Greg Goodwin, Larry DiGiovanni and Pat Holden will certainly create some challenges.


Read more of Tom Williams' columns