Wasilewski moves up as BV varsity girls coach

MANLIUS – Bureau Valley High School will have its third head girls basketball coach in four years, but it won’t be a stranger.

Sophomore coach Matt Wasilewski steps up to take over as varsity coach from Daniel Sinclair, who resigned after two years to take a new teaching position.

Wasilewski has been sophomore coach for three years under two different head coaches. He also is an assistant football and baseball coach.

Wasilewski, 48, who attended now BV rival Erie High School, said he’s excited to take over. The Storm just wrapped up their summer season Wednesday with the girls moving on to volleyball for the rest of the summer.

The new Storm coach doesn’t plan to make a lot of changes.

“We’re man-to-man defense – try to play tough defense, sometimes full-court and three-quarter court, do some trapping with that. Offensively, just want to push the ball,” he said.

“The girls know I like to play defense and that’s one thing we’ve been good at consistently the past few years. Defense has always been an emphasis, even when we weren’t scoring.”

Wasilewski, who teaches special education and leadership at BVHS, already is relearning all the different demands that a head coach has.

“The big difference is just the organization of practice and the equipment, getting youth camp forms out. Things like that I thought I was done with, I had to jump back in doing,” he said.

“Previously, coach [Jim] Nugent and coach Sinclair took care of those things. That’s one of the nice things about being an assistant. One of the more tedious jobs as head coach.”

Wasilewski recently coached boys basketball at Gilman Iroquois West and Peoria Heights. He was also head football coach at Iroquois West from 2013 to 2018 and has been a head softball coach.

Longtime BV staffer Bret Helms was named sophomore girls coach and BV alum Savannah Wall was named freshman girls coach.

Sinclair returned to his home area to teach earth and forensics science at East Peoria and hopes to find a job coaching soccer in the Peoria area as the Raiders’ positions are filled.

He was head girls coach at BV for two years, compiling an 11-28 record.