Fiene offered S'ville boys basketball job

Posted May 04, 2017 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Editor@heraldtrib.com

Steeleville High School may have its next head boys basketball coach.

Current assistant coach Aaron Fiene confirmed to the Herald Tribune that school officials had offered him the job. His appointment still needs to be approved by the Steeleville District 138 Board of Education, which meets May 15.

"I'm excited for the opportunity for the chance to coach these young men and build on the foundations that we had and improve the program any way possible," said Fiene, who is also a member of the Board of Education.

Fiene, 38, has been coaching in the district for the past eight years, first at the junior high level and has been coaching the Warriors' freshmen and sophomore teams for the last three years.

"We're really going to focus on the defensive end of the floor and fundamentals of offense," he said. "We're going to have a lot of size and we'll work on getting the ball inside and focus on defense and rebounding."

The Warriors finished 20-10 last season, falling to Christopher in the semifinals of the Class 1A Crab Orchard Regional. In 2016, the Warriors ended a 22-9 season with a loss to eventual state fourth place finisher Woodlawn in the Crab Orchard Regional championship.

"We've got quite a bit of varsity experience coming back and we had a successful JV team with most of these guys and I see that transitioning well to the varsity game," Fiene said.

Former coach and current SHS Athletic Director Bryce Bainter stepped down in March to spend more time with family.

"I think him being in the program the last three years as an assistant and not going into it blind will be an asset," Bainter said. "He's very upbeat. A lot of energy. I'm sure he'll get the kids to work hard."

On the hardwood, Steeleville could bring back some size next season with its junior class of Eli Wittenborn (6-4), Nic Ebers (6-6) and Noah Valleroy (6-6).

Point guard Owen Gross is coming off a strong showing - scoring 77 points in three games - at the Murphysboro Sophomore Tournament in March and Bradley Mevert, Gavin Conway and others could see expanded roles this winter.

"Our summer program this year is going to key on speed, agility and weight training," Fiene said. "We will not be playing in our league. We'll do some pickup games with a couple of other schools, but mostly we'll focus on doing what we need to do to get ourselves prepared for the year."

Fiene is originally from Steeleville and is a former Warrior with the Class of 1996. He told the newspaper that Andy Gerlach will return as junior varsity coach and that he anticipates bringing somebody in to coach the freshmen/sophomores.

"I'm from Steeleville," he said. "I don't want to go anywhere else."

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