Prep notebook: Hixson promotes Garrick Hall, Ashley Harper, adds Brent Easton, Caleb Collier

Prep Sports
Prep Sports

There are two new faces - Brent Easton and Caleb Collier - on the athletic staff at Hixson High School, and two holdovers have taken new positions.

Easton will coach girls' basketball but also is assisting Dan Duff in football, working with receivers and defensive backs. Collier replaced Charles Weems as Duff's defensive coordinator.

New athletic director Garrick Hall, who will continue to be the wrestling coach, also announced Ashley Harper will take over as softball coach while continuing as an assistant for girls' basketball. She's in her third year at Hixson.

A former Bledsoe County player, Collier has lived in the Hixson area while coaching football at Boyd-Buchanan (four years under Grant Reynolds) and then at Rhea County (one year under Mark Pemberton).

An English teacher, Harper played soccer and softball at Central - she was a catcher, outfielder and shortstop - but beyond the classroom her Hixson duties involved only girls' basketball. She has been an assistant soccer coach at Central the past two seasons and helped former Hixson softball coach Kaiti Kelley last year.

Harper has been busy. Once softball season ended, she took Hixson's girls' basketball players to FCA camp and then almost immediately began soccer conditioning and practice at Central.

"I'm excited about the whole school year," she said. "I'm excited for basketball to start back up. I think Coach Easton will be good for the program. The girls are excited. I know the girls. A lot of them play multiple sports, and I'm excited to be able to really coach them."

A math teacher, Easton initially applied for the girls' basketball position, which came open when Matt Smith decided to return to the boys' game as an assistant elsewhere. Then the football assistant position came open. Though he will be coaching only two sports, Easton also coached softball in Alabama.

Since he left his Indiana home and moved south, Chattanooga is the closest he has come to being near extended family.

He and his family were visiting with Signal Mountain football coach Ty Wise and fell in love with Chattanooga.

"My wife is fitness-oriented, and on one of our visits we walked the River Walk," Easton said. "We looked at Chattanooga and our situation and felt it was a good move, and I think we're moving into a better school system for our children."

Hall has completed his second decade in Hamilton County schools and coached at East Ridge, Arts & Sciences and Hixson Middle before moving to Hixson High. He has been there the past 14 seasons as wrestling coach and part of the time as a football assistant. He also has coached track.

Choo Choo makes for busy weekend

The 30th Choo Choo high school volleyball tournament is this weekend at Red Bank and Ooltewah, and 26 teams are entered.

Pool-play matches start at 4 p.m. Friday. The day's last matches at Ooltewah are scheduled for 7. Final matches at Red Bank are scheduled at 9.

Seeded pool play begins Saturday morning at 9 at both schools, with the last of those matches slated for 2 p.m. Based on pool-play records, teams will be placed and seeded in either the Gold bracket at Ooltewah or the Silver bracket at Red Bank.

Single-elimination play in the Silver bracket is scheduled to begin at 3 with the title match set for 6. Single-elimination in the Gold bracket is slated to start at 4 and conclude with the title match at 8. Admission is $7 per day.

"It's a good tournament," said Ooltewah coach Elaine Peigen, whose program took over as co-host in 2014 after tournament founder Catherine Neely retired as coach at East Ridge. "There are a lot of good teams, local and out-of-town. We're excited to be hosting it."

Baylor soccer a work in progress

His Lady Red Raiders lost their second match of a showcase last weekend, but Baylor soccer coach Curtis Blair was optimistic, especially after their second-half showing against Cookeville.

"I was proud of the way that we played in the second half," he said. "We talked about playing with desire, and the girls did a much better job. We played two really good teams, and it gave Coach Lara Sibold and myself an honest look at where we are right now. We did some good things but also have some areas of the game that we must improve quickly."

They didn't do it quickly enough and were shut out by Chattanooga Christian - which lost to GPS - earlier this week.

"I thought we worked hard," Blair assessed, "but we have been talking about executing, and we just didn't do it."

- Staff writer Kelley Smiddie contributed to this story.

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