A pair of northwest Georgia prep programs are welcoming back familiar faces for the 2020-21 school year.
Hannah (Mayo) Harris will guide the Dalton High School girls' basketball team. Harris helped Dalton to a 23-win season as a player in 2006-07 before continuing her career at Reinhardt University, where she later was a graduate assistant coach. She has been the head girls' basketball coach at Murray County the past four years.
Harris replaces Brad Beck, who was not retained after ending a two-year run at Dalton with a 22-33 record.
"It's special to be back at Dalton," Harris said. "Not a lot of coaches have the ability to return to their alma mater. It's come full circle for me since the opportunity to become a coach came because of my time playing at Reinhardt, which only came about because of what I did at Dalton."
Dalton was once one of the most successful girls' programs in north Georgia, but since the school was reclassified into the state's second-highest classification in 2014 it has had just one winning season. Harris knows changing that will be a process.
"My expectations are high in all areas," she said. "Of course, I want to win and return the program to the tradition of when I played, but it goes beyond basketball. I want those kids to be excellent students and people as well as players. It's tough playing those schools in the Atlanta area, but we will work on getting bigger, stronger and faster and become more competitive."
Sonoraville High School is welcoming Deron Walraven back as head baseball coach, a position he handled from 2011-15. Walraven, who has remained as a teacher at the Calhoun-area school, coached the Phoenix to 52 wins and three playoff appearances.
He replaces Daniel McArthur, who has taken a job at Calhoun Middle School after two-plus seasons as Sonoraville's coach.
"It feels good," Walraven said. "The last couple of years I've been itching to get back at it. I've been a baseball person my whole life, and I really haven't gotten out of coaching the last five years. I've been coaching my son's teams. He just turned 11 and will be getting into middle school soon. This is a great chance to get back at the high school level before he gets there.
"As for next year, we've got a good group of seniors and the pipeline is strong. My goal is to get it rolling like we did at one time."
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.