The times they are a-changin' for Valley Center

The beleaguered Valley Center football program has a new coach, and the Hornets hope he will help engineer a turnaround.

Valley Center has struggled in recent years. In 2009, the Hornets went 0-9, were shut out four times and concluded their season with a 53-14 loss to Wichita West.

Every other team in their league – the Ark Valley Chisholm Trail’s Division II – earned at least four victories in 2009. Now, Valley Center fans hope Pat Haxton will be part of the solution.

Haxton has coached Southeast of Saline for 11 years. He led the Trojans to a Class 3A title in 2005. He is Valley Center’s new coach, replacing John Black after three seasons.

Southeast of Saline put together an 8-2 record in the fall, finishing with a loss to Hutchinson Trinity in the first round of the playoffs. In 2008, Southeast of Saline compiled a 7-3 record and lost in the first round of playoffs to Halstead.

Valley Center, on the other hand, hasn’t had a winning season since 2001. That’s the last year Mike Smith coached the Hornets before departing for Garden City.

In his last five years at Valley Center, Smith never had more than two losses in a season. In contrast, he hasn’t won more than four games in each of the past three seasons at Garden City.

Valley Center is facing considerable change, not only because of the new football coach but because of the AVCTL’s division re-alignment. The Hornets will remain in Division II along with Arkansas City and McPherson, but Andover, Andover Central and Goddard will move to D-II in the 2010-11 school year. In addition, voters approved a bond issue that calls for a new high school set to open in 2011. The current high school will house seventh and eighth grades.

Other football coaching changes:

Steve Pazzie resigned after 19 years as Augusta head coach. Roger Robben will leave his head coaching position at Goddard to replace Pazzie.

Bill Lowe resigned after five years as Emporia head coach. He will be the head coach at a new school, Blue Valley Southwest.

Dustin Delaney, assistant coach at Hutchinson, will take over for Lowe at Emporia.