After spending the last eight seasons at Marengo high school, Eberne Myrthil is ready to try his hand at a larger school.
Myrthil has been hired as the head boys basketball coach and track and field coach at Holtville high school, the school announced on Friday afternoon.
Myrthil has wanted the chance to move to a bigger school than the AHSAA Class 1A Marengo he’s been at, so when the Holtville job opened up, he quickly applied.
He already had previous relationships with both athletic director Jason Franklin and principal Kyle Futral, so it was a perfect fit.
“I am super excited and I don’t even know if that describes just how excited I am,” Myrthil said. “I’ve been at a small school for the last eight years and wanted the chance to grow, so that has me really ready to start. I know Holtville has a good tradition in basketball and kids there love the sport. They are giving me the chance to get here and build something, so I jumped on the opportunity.”
Myrthil is excited to join the Holtville basketball program, which he said has a tradition-rich program with previous success. Holtville has one state title in basketball, winning the AHSAA Class 3A state championship in 1996.
The Bulldogs found success last year, but missed the playoffs with a 12-12 overall record and a 2-6 record in Class 5A, Area 6.
All five of Holtville’s starters were seniors last year, and their main six-man rotation were all seniors. Not many underclassmen got a lot of playing time, so Myrthil is excited to be able to come in and implement a new system without having to completely uproot the whole program.
“I’m opening up the team for everyone,” Myrthil said. “Nothing is set in stone. Just after watching film and looking at what they did the past two years, I will be trying to develop these young guys and seeing what they can do because they didn’t get much playing time. That makes it where it’ll be a lot development, but that’s not a bad thing. We will be able to see them adapt and flourish in what we’re going to be doing.”
Myrthil isn’t entering with an exact idea of an offensive scheme he wants to run with the team. He’s a veteran coach, and he knows as well as anyone that a high school coach has to adapt to the players he has on the team.
He knows his team will be limited to who walks the hallways at Holtville, so that’s what he has to work with and adapt his team to. Skill sets and talents change, but one thing does not change.
That is playing strong defense.
“One thing we will do is strive to play tough defense,” Myrthil said. “Offensively, it will depend on our skill sets and talent of the players we have. The one consistency you will see, however, is us playing defense for 90 feet. We will play defense.”
At Marengo, Myrthil served as the head basketball, track and field, football, and athletic director. He’s also coached baseball in the past, so one of the things he is most excited about is being able to focus on only basketball and track at Holtville.
He said it was “refreshing” and it gives him the chance to work more thoroughly with the kids on his teams. This gives him the opportunity to try and perfect the basketball program, and it makes him available to basketball players from the start.
However, he is not ready to give up the pigskin just yet. He has had plenty of success as a head football coach during his career, and he and Franklin have already met and had plenty of talks about how each like to coach football.
He said he is at Franklin’s disposal as an assistant on the football team, and will help in whatever capacity that Franklin wants.
In the meantime, Myrthil is still making his drive from Marengo to Slapout every day to try and get his players ready for next season.
He was not able to hold a tryout as school has already ended, but he is able to begin workouts with the players he currently has. He began workouts on Monday afternoon, mostly weightlifting and cardio.
When school begins in the fall, he will hold tryouts to get more players on the team.
