By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Brian Weinrich spent the last two days getting familiar with his new job as head coach of the Newport High School football team.
“It was pretty incredible,” he said. “We got after it right away and it was a good time.”
Weinrich was head coach of the Highlands football program the last seven years, but he was not rehired after the Bluebirds finished the 2020 season with a 5-6 record. In February, he was named defensive coordinator of the Beechwood football team that won the Class 2A state championship last December.
He said he decided to take charge of the Newport program because “it just felt right on so many levels.”
“From the very beginning of the conversations with the administration down at Newport, it just felt right,” Weinrich said. “They’re so focused on putting kids first there and they were just first class about everything. Besides that, the coaching staff that’s in place, I had a lot of familiarity with the guys there.”
Weinrich is replacing Joe Wynn, who left the Newport program to become head football coach at Mason County. The Wildcats compiled an 18-13 record under Wynn over the last three seasons.
Newport is in the same Class 2A district as Beechwood, where Weinrich spent the last four months working with head coach Noel Rash and his staff.
“I told Noel that was one of the hardest things, telling him about the (Newport) situation, because he was so unbelievable great to me these last several months,” Weinrich said.
“I really developed some great friendships with those guys and it was hard saying I won’t be with you anymore. But they completely understood and were 100 percent supportive. They understood it was nothing to do with them, it was just something I needed to do.”
Highlands won the 2014 Class 4A state title in Weinrich’s first year as head coach and compiled a 51-36 record over the last seven seasons.
Before he became head coach, Weinrich was defensive coordinator at Highlands from 2002 to 2013. The Bluebirds won seven state titles during the 12 years he was in charge of the defensive unit.
Newport has not enjoyed the same success as the Highlands football program. Before Wynn became head coach, the Wildcats had a 4-29 record over three seasons and the number of players in the program dwindled. There were 34 players on last year’s varsity roster and only seven of them were seniors.
“Obviously, its a smaller school than what I’m used to, so it’s a little bit different in terms of (numbers), but we’re in good shape,” Weinrich said.
CovLatin tennis player loses marathon match in state semifinals
Covington Latin sophomore Sara Wantanabe lost a third-set tiebreaker to Sacred Heart senior Ellie Eades, 13-10, in the semifinals of the girls singles bracket at the state tennis tournament on Thursday in Lexington.
After Wantanabe won the first set, 6-4, and Eades won the second set, 6-0, they battled through the marathon tiebreaker that ended with Eades on top.
In the championship match, another Sacred Heart senior, Carrie Beckman, defeated her classmate Eades, 6-1, 6-1, to win her third state singles title. Beckman is a Notre Dame University recruit. Eades will join the University of Kentucky women’s team next school year.
Wantanabe lived up to her No. 3 seed in girls singles by winning five matches in straight sets to make it to the state semifinals. She’s the first Covington Latin player to reach the final four in girls singles since 2001, when Miriam Rahali was state runner-up.
The last local player to win a state title in girls singles was Maddie Cook of Notre Dame in 2012. Meredith Laskey of Highlands was state runner-up in 2014 and reached the state semifinals in 2015.
Class 1A region track meet set for Friday after two-day rain delay
After a two-day rain delay, local teams will compete in the Class 1A Region 4 track and field meet at 5 p.m. Friday at the Bishop Brossart athletic complex.
The other region meets involving local teams were completed on Tuesday. The team champions were Highlands in Class 2A Region 4 boys, Covington Catholic in Class 3A Region 5 boys and Dixie Heights in Class 3A Region 5 girls.
The Highlands girls team finished second behind Bourbon County in the Class 2A Region 4 meet.
The top two finishers in each region event automatically qualify for next week’s state championship meet at the University of Kentucky. The dates are Thursday (June 10) for Class 1A, Friday (June 11) for Class 2A and Saturday (June 12) for Class 3A.
After all the region meets are completed, at-large state qualifiers in events will be selected based on times and distances recorded in region meets.