Prairie Heights announced on Tuesday the hiring of longtime area coach Daniel Barnett as the new girls basketball head coach at the school.
“After receiving the call from the A.D. Mr. Byler, I actually got a bit choked up in my response out of excitement. Immediately, no hesitation, accepted the offer,” Barnett said. “I actually was in my car driving and I thanked the God above because without him this would never have been possible. I owe my praise to him first and foremost.”
While diversified in his resume on the sidelines, this will be Barnett’s first foray into the head coaching space for a school program. Barnett started his head coaching career on the middle school level at Towles Intermediate before joining Jeremy Rauch’s boys basketball staff at Snider for two seasons. From there, he became the boys junior varsity coach at Bishop Luers and later became a volunteer coach at St Peter’s Lutheran School, coaching the girls junior varsity program.
Barnett’s time on the sideline also has included work on the AAU circuit. He has been the director of the Believers Basketball program and coaches with Always100 currently as the head coach of their Always100 Defend 2031 team.
“AAU is a great platform to be a part of. Learning how to build the relationships, finding connections. Learning how the pace changes from AAU to high school ball is something that I have really been working on to prepare myself for high school,” Barnett noted.
The new Prairie Heights coach says that he has many great advocates and mentors. He cites Saint Francis girls assistant Dave Posey, as well as Chad Baker a former Eastside girls assistant, Reggie Tharp, current Bishop Luers boys coach Seth Coffing and Luers assistant coach Lance Williams – who he also coached with at Snider – as being some of those people.
“I know there is more and sorry if I didn’t get to mention them all but I’m forever grateful for anyone in the basketball world that has believed in me and given me support,” Barnett said.
Barnett will take over a team that graduates top scorer Emily McCrea, but he will return every other player that saw varsity minutes this past season. Prairie Heights went 7-17 last season under Bill Moor, who spent spent five seasons leading the program. Freshman Avery Certain saw action in 16 games, but will be the top leading returning scorer 6.5 points per game and rebounder at 5.8 per contest. Bailee Godsey (5.3 ppg) is the only other player returning who scored more than five points per game on average. The team averaged 33.4 points per game last season.
“One of the most exciting aspects of joining the NECC is the growth around the area,” Barnett said. “This is a good conference to play lady basketball. Prairie Heights was one of only three schools I applied to and I knew from doing my research about the program that if offered, this was the school I would love to be apart of.”
Barnett will now have to move to get the Panthers back into a consistent winning mode. Moor went 11-11 in his second season of five with the school, but the Panther girls have not had a winning overall record since they went 14-8 under Kevin Frey during the 2011-2012 season. Their last postseason title winning season came in 2006 with a Sectional title win over Garrett despite going just 7-16 that season.
“The efforts of the girls will be a non-negotiable for me. I want each girl to put in the work to be successful. These things lead into life choices and not just basketball,” Barnett said.
Barnett becomes Prairie Heights’ 10th girls basketball coach in the past 25 years. The Panthers have won 11 Sectional titles with the first coming in 1981. They also won their lone regional title in 1986.
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