Al Semenza’s 35-year coaching career has included two major rebuilding projects.
His latest assignment will be of a different nature – trying to get the Pittston Area boys basketball team over the top.
Semenza was appointed Tuesday night to take over a program that went 13-10 last season with a promising, young lineup.
The Pittston Area School Board named two new head coaches at the meeting, also selecting Frank Parente to move up from the role of assistant coach to take over the softball team from Alan Kiesinger.
Semenza leaves his position at Western Wayne to take over for Alan Kiesinger, who resigned after 10 years of leading the program.
“I was familiar with them because along the way scouting last year, they happened to play two opponents that we played,” Semenza said. “So, I saw Pittston Area live twice last year and I knew their personnel.
“And, I’ve obviously been studying film on them since I became an applicant for the position. I do think that there is some talent there.”
One of Semenza’s two rebuilding projects came at Wyoming Area. The Warriors had five straight losing seasons before he became head coach in 1992.
In his second and final season, 1993-94, Semenza led Wyoming Area to one of only three state tournament victories in the program’s history.
Before and after coaching at Wyoming Area, Semenza had long stints coaching Old Forge, his hometown team.
The Blue Devils won nine District 2 titles and made 17 state tournament appearances while winning more than 400 games under Semenza. He coached Old Forge 1980-92 and 1995-2013.
Semenza returned to coaching at Western Wayne, which had won only eight games overall in the previous six seasons combined. In his first season, 2016-17, the Wildcats broke a 60-game Lackawanna League losing streak and finished 7-17.
They went 10-12 and 14-12 the past two seasons. Before leaving, Semenza led Western Wayne to its first District 2 playoff win and its first appearance in the state tournament since it was a member of the now-defunct District 12 in 1994.
“We’re off and running,” said Semenza, who observed a Pittston Area JV team in a summer league game Wednesday and met with the players in the program Thursday. “Obviously, there’s a lot to be done, getting the position in mid-June.
“We’re going to lose the football guys soon when it comes time for full-time football. We’ll hope to make up some ground over the next few weeks and get some of our ideas in place before that rolls around.”
Parente takes over a softball team that is coming off the two deepest postseason runs in school history back-to-back. He was an assistant on this year’s District 2-4 Subregional champion and state Class 5A quarterfinalist.
“We want to keep up that winning culture,” Parente said. “We’ve definitely built a culture of winning and I don’t want them to lose that feeling.”
Parente, from West Wyoming, has been a teacher in the Wyoming Area School District for 24 years. He teaches fifth grade.
Although this will be his first high school head coaching assignment, Parente did coach the Northeast Explosion and MVP Blue Jackets travel teams, made up of Pittston Area and Wyoming Area players, from 2012 to 2018.
