By Joseph Cyr
Sports Editor
Two new, but familiar faces will be taking over varsity girls basketball teams for Caribou and Limestone-MSSM this winter. Ryan Deprey has been named the new varsity girls basketball coach at Caribou High School, while Bob Hancock returns to the Limestone-MSSM varsity squad.
For Caribou, Deprey is no stranger to Viking sports as he is currently the varsity softball coach for CHS. He takes over a Viking program led for the past eight seasons by Bill Schofield.
Deprey has coached junior varsity boys at Caribou and spent seven years as varsity boys coach at Limestone, earning a trip to the Bangor Auditorium. Last year, he served as the junior varsity girls coach in Caribou.
Deprey said coaching girls differs from boys teams.
“With boys, you can do more with the full-court passes and things like that,” he said. “With girls, you have more of a control-type game of basketball. But the one thing you can do with both is press [defensively].”
Deprey said he expects the Vikings to be more aggressive on the court next winter, using the team’s natural athletic ability to wear down opponents.
He will continue coaching softball at CHS.
Hancock, a biology, chemistry and physics teacher at Limestone, returns to the Eagles after a five-year hiatus from coaching. He replaces Jamie LaBreck, who relocated to New York. LaBreck led Limestone-MSSM for the past five seasons. LaBreck was also a junior varsity coach for Hancock.
Hancock had great success with the Eagles before taking a break from coaching.
“I’m very happy Bob decided to return,” Limestone-MSSM Athletic Director Larry Worcester said. “He expressed some interest and when he learned Jamie was leaving, we got together and talked about it [his return]. I think it will be a real good transition for us.”
Hancock started as a seventh-grade basketball coach in the district and worked his way through the ranks before ultimately becoming the varsity coach, a position he held for about 10 years. Hancock said he stepped down for coaching to devote more time to other activities in his life.
“I took a new position in my fraternal organization and felt that required more time than I could spend doing both,” he said. “I’ve wanted to get back into coaching for a while now and with Jamie moving, the timing seemed right.”
He hopes his return will bring some stability to the program and help transition some of the younger coaches so that they will be ready to take over for him when the time comes.
“We have a decent group coming back next year that has experienced success in both soccer and softball,” he said. “That success is something we want to bring to the basketball court.”
Hancock said he plans to focus his efforts on improving defense, while also teaching the Eagles to run the floor more.
“I want us to be a good rebounding and defensive team to start, but I want to run the ball a bit more to take some pressure off your half-court offense,” he said.
