Crystal Lake Central to hire Deain as baseball coach, pending D155 approval

Former Prairie Ridge pitching coach Andy Deain will become the baseball coach at Crystal Lake Central, pending approval at the Community High School District 155 Board meeting Tuesday.

Deain is a Prairie Ridge graduate who pitched at Northern Illinois University from 2006 to 2009. He played briefly in the minor leagues in 2010 and in five games with the Joliet Slammers in 2011.

Deain was the pitching coach at Prairie Ridge for a number of years before taking the 2018 season off after he and his wife, Abbey, had their first child in January. He will take over the Tigers' program from Tom Mueller, who served as coach for three seasons.

Also pending school board approval Tuesday, Prairie Ridge girls soccer coach Andre Watson is resigning after three seasons. Watson guided Prairie Ridge to an undefeated regular season this spring. The Wolves won Class 2A regional titles in each of Watson’s three seasons in charge, including a sectional title in 2017.

Prairie Ridge’s Jim Benson is resigning as boys tennis coach, and Dave Hartl is resigning as girls track coach.

At Crystal Lake South, boys and girls tennis coach Don Nead is retiring after 50 seasons, as previously reported by the Northwest Herald. Last week, Nead won the Northwest Herald's Lifetime Achievement Award at the Most Valuable Athlete Awards celebration.

In addition to Deain’s hiring, Central is hiring Cory Osterberg as coach for boys and girls tennis. Osterberg was the boys head coach from 2013 to 2017 before serving as an assistant this past year. Amanda Schuetzle had been the Tigers' girls coach since 2014.

Leo Zimmerman will become the Tigers’ boys lacrosse coach. Zimmerman previously was the lacrosse coach for the Central lacrosse club team. District 155 schools are joining the IHSA in lacrosse next year.