Athletic directors south of the Minnesota River had a busy summer filling coaching vacancies.
Some of the offseason hirings:
• Burnsville most recently named Tracy Cassano its girls' hockey coach. Cassano replaces Garnet Asmundson, who was with the program one season.
Cassano previously coached at Rosemount as well as the Chaska/Chanhassen cooperative team. Cassano (formerly Engstrom) helped the University of Minnesota to the American Women's College Hockey Alliance championship in 2000. She was a two-time captain of the Gophers.
• Eastview selected its former girls' basketball coach, Paul Goetz, to replace Mark Gerber at the helm of the boys' program. Gerber resigned at the beginning of June.
Goetz built the girls' program into a perennial power over the past 16 years. He was the head coach for 14 years before spending the past two seasons as an assistant coach so he could watch his son, Garrett, play for Rosemount. He won 326 games while leading the Lightning to five conference championships and four state tournament appearances. He was named the state coach of the year in 2003 and 2009.
Earlier, Eastview hired Ted Reiff to take over its volleyball program this fall. Reiff replaces Becky Egan, who accepted the head coaching position at Hamline University in March.
Reiff spent the past three years as coach of Benilde-St. Margaret's. He previously coached at Holy Angels for eight years.
