After two rounds of interviews by its athletic committee, Scott has chosen Chris Dames, 30, as its boys basketball coach.

It is the first head coaching position for Dames, an assistant for five seasons under Joe Suboticki.

"It's exciting and I'm really thrilled," Dames said. "To have the opportunity to put my footprint in the program. It's a rich tradition with a very successful past and great history at Scott.

"I love the area and the community, and I'm just thrilled that I can use this as a way to really reach out to the kids now and help them. That's what it's about to me. I am a basketball coach, but I'm also a mentor first. I really want to help these kids succeed, and this is an excellent opportunity to be able to do that."

Dames is a 1998 graduate of Ann Arbor Pioneer. Employed as a social worker at the Wayman Palmer YMCA on Bancroft Street, Dames is six credit hours short of completing his bachelor's degree at the University of Toledo.

"We look forward to Chris' energy in re-establishing Scott High School to the level of competition, respect, and tradition that our community is used to," Scott athletic director Jim Huss said. "Coach Dames is a very enthusiastic individual who has the qualities necessary to have a productive impact on our basketball program."

Dames spent four seasons as an unpaid assistant on the freshman team at Scott, and last year was elevated to a paid position as Suboticki's varsity assistant. Suboticki, one of Ohio's most successful coaches during his 30-year career, resigned following Scott's third consecutive losing season. The Bulldogs finished 4-16 last season.

"We need to do some reprogramming," Dames said of the losing run. "I want to bring the alumni back around. They need to know the tradition. Little things like showing them the state championship film from 1990.

"They've got to get that attitude of winning. The kids call it a swagger that you have, when you walk in that gym and you're confident."

Dames believes he has some promising personnel, although he acknowledges one hurdle being the fact that Scott students will again be housed in the former DeVilbiss High School while renovations at Scott are completed in 2010-11. The Bulldogs will not be able to play home games at the Ben Williams Field House.

"I'm happy with the group I've got coming back next year," Dames said. "We're only losing two seniors that saw a lot of playing time, so the majority of our top eight will be back with experience."

Burns to lead Arrows

St. Ursula has hired the highly experienced Ronald "Duffy" Burns as its next basketball coach to succeed Dave Rieker.

Burns, a veteran of 29 years of coaching men's and women's college and high school basketball, spent eight of those seasons as the women's coach at Cleveland State.

"This is the best job out there for a basketball coach," Burns said. "St. Ursula has a good core group of players and there is lots of room for growth. My job is to make them better and turn St. Ursula basketball into a social gathering that people really want to come to.

"The style of play is going to be different. We'll play up-tempo and aim to shoot 20 [3-pointers] a night and score 55 [points] a game."

Burns' most recent coaching posts were as a girls assistant at Northview and as a women's assistant at the University of Toledo.

"We are fortunate as an athletic department and a basketball program to have hired a person of Duffy Burns' caliber," St. Ursula athletic director Steve Parrill said. "He brings great experience and knowledge of basketball and coaching female athletes. We are very excited about the future of St. Ursula basketball."

The Arrows were 6-14 overall and 4-7 in City League play last season, and were 18-42 (11-22 CL) in Rieker's three seasons. St. Ursula's only City championship came in 1994, and the Arrows' last CL title-game appearance was in 1998.

State tournament

Perrysburg freshman Jeff Schorsch will be the only local Divsion I singles competitor, and St. John's Jesuit will have two doubles teams competing at the state boys tennis tournament which begins tomorrow at Ohio State's Stickney Tennis Center.

In Division II, Maumee Valley senior Eyad Jaara will be making his third trip to the state singles tourney, having won first-round matches and lost in the quarterfinals in 2007 and 2009.

Maumee Valley teammates Christian Fesko, a junior, and Stephen Shin, a sophomore, are in the doubles competition.

Schorsch, the Northern Lakes League's No. 1 singles champion, opens against junior Casey

Cempre of Thomas Worthington.

The St. John's team of seniors Devon Sbrocchi and Josef Pontasch, the district champions, will face the Springboro team of senior Michael O'Gara and freshman Phillip Gruber in a first-round doubles match.

Titans juniors Evan Bechtel and Ryan Jorgensen will face the Mason team of senior Trevor Martin and junior Vince Hsu in the opening round.

Jaara, the district champion, has a first-round match against Dayton Chaminade-Julienne sophomore Andrew Bole, and the Fesko-Shin team takes on Cambridge freshmen twins Cody and Connor Engstrom.

First Published May 27, 2010, 11:30 a.m.