Central fills three coaching positions

Central assistant boys soccer coach Dan Martin was promoted to head coach Monday. He replaces Tom Doyle, who retired this past spring as the boys and girls soccer coach.

The school also hired Elizabeth Fleer as its new girls soccer coach, and former Southeast Missouri State tennis player Bryce Kristal to student-teach and lead the girls tennis team, said Mark Ruark, whose last day as Central athletic director was Monday.

Martin, who played college soccer at the University of Louisville, was an assistant coach under Doyle for three years.

"His hard work and his knowledge of soccer is second to none in terms of knowing the game and understanding the game," Ruark said of Martin. "And he gets along well with the kids. To me that choice was kind of a no-brainer once we knew Dan was interested in the job. He's a high-quality individual and a high-quality coach. He had the support. It's really funny because when it came out that Tom was retiring, I got letters from players and parents all endorsing Dan to be the head coach."

Martin takes over a Central team that finished 13-12-1 and lost 2-1 to Jackson in the Class 3 District 1 championship game last season.

Martin has some big shoes to fill. Doyle, who was with the boys team from 1990 to 2007, posted a 290-145-20 record.

Fleer will serve as the assistant boys coach in addition to her duties as girls coach. She also will work as a physical education teacher.

Ruark said this will be Fleer's first formal coaching position at the high school level.

"She has a soccer background," Ruark said. "I think she played at SIU Edwardsville and is a real promising coach. I think she'll do an outstanding job. I feel really good about the people we've got stepping in to take Tom Doyle's place. Tom is arguably one of the most successful coaches in Cape Central history with all the district championships that he won in girls and boys soccer. I think we're in pretty good hands here.

"The key things that we were looking for in hiring a [girls] soccer coach was someone who our girl soccer players could identify with and get behind."

Ruark said assistant girls coach Jane Comeau will remain on the staff.

Kristal, who will student-teach, takes over for Annette Slattery, who retired as tennis coach after posting a 317-47-19 career record and winning 19 district titles.

"Right now it [the girls tennis job] will be kind of an emergency coach situation because she [Kristal] is not going to be filling a teaching position; she's going to be doing her student teaching this semester," Ruark said. "And hopefully for her it will open up some doors for her to maybe get a full-time teaching job and stay in that coaching position because we'd like to be able to have some consistency there after what Annette Slattery has done."