New coaches take over U-Hi varsity girls cross country, volleyball, basketball programs

Three new varsity coaches are hard at work this summer preparing their respective teams for the upcoming 2017-18 school year at University High School.

After three seasons as the assistant coach, Michael Connelly takes over as head coach of the Titans girls cross country coach.

Tony Collins takes over a volleyball program that has reached the state tournament three of the last four seasons.

And radio personality Jay Kennedy takes over the girls basketball program after longtime head coach Mark Stinson resigned, or as he insists, retired from coaching.

Connelly, who shares his name with the creator of the Hieronymus Bosch detective novels, said there is no mystery to his summer program.

“To be honest, we really want to rebuild the program by getting more freshmen to turn out,” he said. “Our numbers have been down the last few years. But we have some younger sisters of current varsity runners out and that’s helped us get more middle school runners out and excited about running for us.”

Connelly meets with his runners each weekday morning at the school, and they get in a training run before the day heats up. Those incoming freshmen, he said, have been just as consistent in their attendance as his varsity runners.

“We do have a bunch of kids out on family vacations this time of year – that’s always the case,” he said. “But our new kids have been great about turning out every day and getting in their miles.”

Seniors Claire Dingus and Rebecca Lehman are both the team’s top returning runners from the last couple seasons and the team’s captains this season.

“I’m really excited to see what both of those young ladies do this season,” Connelly said. “I’m expecting some big things from both of them. They both had good track seasons this last spring and they both had a good winter, training wise.”

Caitlin Kosmicki, coming into her junior season with the Titans, has helped with the recruiting effort by getting her freshman-to-be sister Kayla, and her friends out and running.

“Kayla is looking really good, and she could easily be a varsity runner for us once we get into the season,” he said.

Collins takes over a program that has enjoyed a good deal of recent success.

Mike Summers, who resigned after the season, now is the volleyball coach at Lake City. Summers teaches in Spokane, but lives in Post Falls and coaching the Timberwolves is closer to home.

Kennedy, the Jay half of Jay and Kevin on Coyote Country 99.9 FM, has no varsity head coaching experience, but has coached a good deal at the club level.

Stinson retires from coaching after 28 seasons as a head coach, where he led Tekoa-Oakesdale and Northwest Christian before arriving at University High. He finishes with a career record of 185-175. His best finish was a second-place finish in 2006-07, where the Titans lost to Lewis and Clark in the championship game, 39-34.

Stinson’s career rivals that of his father, longtime area coach and author Jim Stinson.

The elder Stinson not only coached Davenport to state titles with his daughter, Jennifer, leading the way, he also wrote several books about the State B basketball tournament, “Remembering the B” and “Tournament Fever,” published in the mid-1970s.

Jim Stinson, now 70, is still coaching, getting talked into coaching the local junior high track team.

Mark Stinson will now focus his energy on his three kids. His son, 11-year-old Evan, is already a rangy basketball player who has helped his team win several 3-on-3 basketball tournaments.

Meanwhile, at Central Valley, Jason Allen takes over the CV varsity volleyball program after spending the last six season as an assistant coach, including the last four as head JV coach.

Allen takes over for Laurie Quigly, who resigned after accepting a teaching position at Mt. Spokane High School. Allen becomes the fourth head CV coach in the past five seasons.