Trinity hires Miles as girls basketball coach

A flurry of high school football coaching hires drew the ire of local fan bases, but the rumblings at Trinity considering the girls basketball program have quieted since the hiring of Bob Miles as head coach.

As far as hires go, it's difficult to find a better one.

A teacher at Trinity for more than two decades, Miles spent the past 15 years as head coach at Fort Cherry. He took a program with little tradition or success and molded into an annual playoff contender. In recent years, Fort Cherry was a Class A powerhouse and Miles was awarded the 2011 PIAA Class A Girls Coach of the Year for his work. He's also a three-time winner of the Tri-CADA Girls Basketball Coach of the Year Award.

Miles guided a group which included Beka Bellhy, Carolena Gasbarro and Jessie Merckle to the 2011 WPIAL Class A championship game, and the PIAA quarterfinals in each of the past two seasons. Fort Cherry stood toe-to-toe with private schools, though three of Fort Cherry last five losses came against North Catholic.

Fort Cherry won 49 games the past two seasons. Miles won 237 games in 15 years, and, as his teams improved over time, the Rangers drew praise from opposing coaches and even college coaches for their style of play. Fort Cherry played disciplined, unselfish and physical basketball.

Basically, the Fort Cherry girls played like a well-coached boys team.

Miles is charged with the task of building Trinity back into a consistent winner. Jackie Kotchman, one of the all-time great players in Hillers' girls basketball history, coached Trinity the past three years and the Hillers did qualify for the WPIAL Class AAA playoffs in 2012, albeit with a losing record.

Miles, who was given a three-year contract, is a proven winner, but establishing a solid program at Trinity won't be instant. Still, the Hillers made the right choice, and the obvious one.

Varsity notebook

Two intriguing names have emerged as Trinity searches for its next girls basketball coach - Bob Miles and Laura Montecalvo.
At least two sources have indicated Miles is interested and the feeling should be mutual. It makes sense. Miles teaches at Trinity and he built Fort Cherry into a program which contended for WPIAL and PIAA titles. Plus, his work has earned respect at a state-wide level as evidenced by his selection as the Class A Coach of the Year in 2011. Miles is a three-time winner of the Tri-County Athletic Director Coaches Association Girls Basketball Coach of the Year. His teams are known for unselfish, disciplined and physical play.
Fort Cherry is moving to Class AA for at least the next two seasons and was placed in a section with Seton-La Salle and Bishop Canevin. The Rangers will still be a solid team the next two years, but there is a reported drop-off in talent after the sophomore class graduates.
If Miles, who lives in the Fort Cherry district, remains interested, consider him the top candidate.
Montecalvo was a standout athlete while at Wash High and has strong interest in becoming a head coach. She is also certified as a guidance counselor, and Trinity may have an opening in guidance for the upcoming school year.
* It's late May and, finally, every local high school has a varsity football coach. Bentworth, Burgettstown, Charleroi, Jefferson-Morgan, McGuffey, Trinity and Waynesburg all enter the 2012 with new coaches.
Bentworth and Charleroi moved quickly with their hires. McGuffey and Waynesburg made splash hires. Trinity conducted an extensive search. Burgettstown moved extremely quick with an in-house candidate in Terry Havelka, also the Blue Devils wrestling coach, following Matt Taylor's departure to Keystone Oaks. Jefferson-Morgan's search was extraordinarily long, the longest I can remember at the high school level.
* The WPIAL individual track championships are today, and the Washington-Greene region should produce a strong share of gold medalists. It's been a strong year for track.
* Speaking of track, the Washington boys team has a legitimate chance to win the Class AA team title at the state meet next weekend.
The Prexies, who turned in one of the most dominant dual meet seasons in WPIAL history, have everything needed to win a state title.
Dustin Fuller has the ability to win multiple individual championships. The 400 and 1,600 relay teams should medal. Other individual medals could come from a long list of athletes including Josh Wise, Darius Spinks, Shai McKenzie, West Jones, Austin Fuller and Joe Phillips. It's a special group.
* McKenzie's showing this track season is solidifying his status as a Division I football prospect. Only a sophomore, McKenzie is running sub-11 seconds in the 100-meter dash and is hearing from a host of Division I football programs from the Big Ten, Big East and ACC.
McKenzie and Monessen's Justice Rawlins are already two of the WPIAL's most sought-after prospects in the Class of 2014. Rawlins already has offers from Pitt and Rutgers, with WVU showing significant interest.
* Got to agree with Mike White from the Post-Gazette, who stated the WPIAL baseball playoffs need tweaked on his blog, Varsity Blog.
The brackets are set so teams with first-round byes can pitch their ace throughout the remainder of the playoffs beginning in the quarterfinals. It takes a lot of intrigue away from the postseason. And cramming the quarterfinals games one day after the first-round games pretty much eliminated any chance for upsets.
* That stated, the WPIAL Class A baseball semifinal between undefeated California and one-loss Bentworth has to be the most anticipated postseason game between a pair of local teams since Peters Township and Canon-McMillan met in the 2008 PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinals.
The two teams play Monday night at Washington & Jefferson's Ross Memorial Park. The game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
* Chartiers-Houston baseball was woefully underseeded. The Bucs were far better than No. 9 in Class A.
* Peters Township junior Olivia Roberson is already a two-time PIAA champion as a key member of the Indians' girls soccer team. An all-state player her junior year, Roberson recently accepted a scholarship offer from Duquesne University.