Home Local Sports New year brings changes to athletics in Diocese of Wilmington as new...

New year brings changes to athletics in Diocese of Wilmington as new coaches, athletic directors ready to take reins

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Salesianum at Cape Henlopen last September.

The high school sports year kicks off — literally — on Sept. 1 with three “Week 0” football games. One of those involves a Catholic school, as Salesianum hosts Cape Henlopen at 7 p.m. at Abessinio Stadium. Saint Mark’s scheduled opener on Sept. 3 at A.I. DuPont has been canceled; the Spartans will now begin Sept. 2 at home against Appoquinimink.

The action will look the same, but there have been several changes at the Catholic high schools. One of the biggest is at Ss. Peter and Paul High School in Easton, Md., where the Sabres will field a volleyball team for the first time. Club volleyball had been in place before that as the administration gauged interest in the sport.

In Wilmington, each of the all-girls high schools have new faces in charge. At Padua Academy, Rick Shea has been named the athletic director after holding the same position at Brandywine High School for many years.

Rainbow Shaw-Giaquinto returns to the volleyball head coaching post, which she held a few years ago. She was an assistant coach last year and has been a longtime member of the volleyball coaching staff for the Pandas. This winter, Denise Igo-Sackett will assume the basketball coaching duties. Sackett played basketball for the Pandas and graduated from the school in 1997.

Saint Mark’s Nicole Dimiris follows through on a hit against Olivia Staats of Padua.

A few blocks away, Stephanie Mark is the athletic director at Ursuline Academy, succeeding Susan Heiss, who retired after 38 years at the school, including approximately 30 as the AD. Mark most recently served as the director of interscholastic athletics for the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association. She has experience in coaching on the high school and college levels, and she was the assistant AD at Sanford School.

Heiss also stepped down as the volleyball coach, and succeeding her is Jen Johnson, who most recently coached at Delaware Military Academy. Johnson, an Ursuline alumna, has also coached at Newark High School and was once the freshman coach at Padua.

Heiss was not the only legend to retire from Ursuline. Cross country and track coach Jim Fischer, a 2012 inductee into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame, retired after 53 years in coaching. Taking over for Fischer will be Melanie Aube and Brittany Keller, who will share head-coaching responsibilities. Aube is a teacher in the middle school, while Keller is Ursuline’s manager of marketing and communications. The pair served as Fischer’s assistants the past several years.

Nate Beringer slides safely into third for St. Elizabeth.

St. Elizabeth High School also is welcoming a new athletic director, but his is a familiar face at the school. Tom Beddow is a longtime faculty member at St. Elizabeth, where he also serves as the athletic trainer and baseball coach. The school has added an assistant AD. That is Caitlin Finkley, who is also the school’s director of marketing and communications, as well as director of alumni relations.

There are new coaches for three girls sports. Kimo Aweau now leads the volleyball team. He is a coach with Premier Volleyball Club. Haley Will is the new field hockey coach, assisted by James Pascoe. Both are teachers at the school. And Joey Peronti, a member of the Vikings’ Class of 2000, is the new girls basketball coach.

At Saint Mark’s High School, Dena Iudica has joined the Spartans’ family as head cheerleading coach. Iudica, who graduated from Saint Mark’s in 1997, was a college cheerleader and has coached at the high school level. Iudica also founded a mentoring program called Cheer for Fun, which gives at-risk fourth- through sixth-graders a chance to cheer and learn dance routines.

Lastly, the boys’ volleyball teams at Saint Mark’s and Salesianum are not new. They have competed in the New Castle County League for the past several years, but if 16 schools field varsity teams next spring, they will do so as an official DIAA championship sport.