Andrews, McCarthy Take Over Monomoy Basketball Programs

HARWICH – There will be new leadership navigating the sidelines at Monomoy this winter.

Chatham native and longtime Chatham/Monomoy coach Craig Andrews has taken over Monomoy’s girls basketball program, while John McCarthy of Brewster will lead Monomoy’s boys program after spending 10 years at Nauset.

“I finally got the call,” said Andrews, who replaces Brian Tomasini. “I’ve been coaching in Monomoy/Chatham for the last 13 or 14 years at various levels, in boys sports and girls sports. I started off as the middle school baseball coach and went to JV soccer and basketball in Chatham, and then I got into coaching girls.”

Andrews will inherit a team with plenty of leadership, including a group of six seniors — AJ Gates, Kiki Pigo-Cronin, Tatiana Malone, Karah Deveau, Susannah Brown and Ileana Babes-Deel — that he has plenty of familiarity with.

“Most of them started with me when they were in fifth grade and they were with me for three years, fifth [grade], sixth and seventh,” Andrews said. “They also played for me on JV here, so we’re back and reunited.”

Andrews said the group is going to “get a chance to flourish” now that they are finally seniors. But he also expects them to set a foundation for the future of the program and help lead the younger girls on the team who will be getting their first taste of varsity basketball under the guidance of Andrews and his sister, Katherine, who will be serving as his assistant coach.

“We’ve done it off and on for the last 13 years,” Andrews said of coaching with his sister. “We’re pretty compatible.”

Andrews said the team will look to capture the Cape and Islands League’s Lighthouse Division title and qualify for the Division 4 state tournament.

“The expectation is to get at least one win [in the state tournament],” he said. “But I’ve been telling the seniors that their legacy is what goes on with the younger girls, it’s not just what we do this season. They’ve all bought into it. We’re trying to build a program.”

On the boys side, McCarthy inherits a program from Dan Taylor that also has a strong core of upperclassmen led by senior Jacob Routhier and juniors Jackson Rocco, Braden Burke, Jackson Morneau, Finn Hyora and Tamarr Washington.

“We have only one senior and we have a packed junior class that has been playing together since fourth grade,” McCarthy said. “And we now have Tamarr Washington — he was here until eighth grade and then went to CCA — who is back playing with the guys he’s been playing with since fourth grade.”

After 10 years of coaching at Nauset, McCarthy took last winter off to see how his business, Pelham House Resort, functioned during the winter. Once he realized his team was capable of running the business during the winter months, he knew he wanted to get back to the sidelines and coach this year.

Monomoy was the perfect fit.

“I ended up saying, ‘If a job opens up, I’m going to take it’ and then sure enough, I found out that Monomoy opens up and it’s 10 minutes from home, 10 minutes from work,” McCarthy said.

After coaching his sons, Johnny and Jeffrey, and their friends during much of his tenure at Nauset, McCarthy said he’s looking forward to starting a new chapter in a new district.

“It’s refreshing,” he said. “It’s a new start and I get to set a bit of a different tone. At Nauset, I coached my two different boys for eight of the 10 years. Now at Monomoy, I don’t have kids that I’m coaching and I’m just coach.

“I think my experience at Nauset has set me up really well to start a program at Monomoy.”

McCarthy said the boys are going to play a fun and fast style of basketball that should be entertaining for the community to watch. The team will face an early test Jan. 5 when it visits Wareham for a matchup with the defending Division 4 state champion Vikings.

“Dan Taylor had a good program and set us up really well,” McCarthy said. “We’re trying to earn some more respect for this program and I keep telling the boys, ‘We’re coming.’”