The girls’ basketball coaching job at Dirigo has joined the list of vacancies in the Mountain Valley Conference this offseason.

Reggie Weston, the Cougars’ coach the previous seven seasons, has been told he won’t be brought back next season and the position is currently vacant and open to applicants.

Dirigo assistant principal and athletic director Mike Hutchins declined to comment about Weston being replaced.

“It’s a personnel matter and I’m really not at liberty to discuss any personnel matters,” Hutchins said. “I haven’t spoken to the superintendent about how I should handle this if I’m speaking about it, but from a personnel standpoint, I really can’t comment on it.”

Weston said he was stunned by the decision. Dirigo went 11-7 last winter and finished eighth in the Western Class C standings. The Cougars defeated Monmouth in the preliminary round and then toppled top-seeded St. Dom’s in the quarterfinals. Dirigo then lost to Madison in the semifinals.

“(Hutchins) said he wanted to go in a different direction,” Weston said. “I have a hard time with that considering the seven years I’ve been with the girls, our record has been 84-54. We made it to the playoffs every year and this year we went to the semifinals. Five more points and we could have gone to the Western Maine finals. We lost by four points. It kind of upset me because I’m from here. I’ve put my heart and soul into this team.”

Dirigo joins Oak Hill and Mt. Abram as schools that have openings for varsity girls’ basketball jobs.

Both of Weston’s daughters played for Dirigo and won numerous championships with the Cougars. Weston previously coached the Dirigo junior high school boys for three seasons, and then coached the Dirigo JV boys. After working with the varsity boys’ program, he took the girls’ coaching job, following Gavin Kane’s successful run with the Cougars. Weston’s Dirigo teams were consistent tourney teams and reached the semifinals twice.

Weston said he was informed that he was not being rehired during the evaluation process after the season.

“I’ve never had any issues like this before as far as evaluations,” Weston said. “I was kind of shocked. I was surprised.”

Hutchins stated that the position has attracted interest from candidates within the school system, but is now open to the public for potential applicants.

“We have interest,” Hutchins said. “We’re going through the applications and determining if the applicants are people that are qualified and people we want to interview.”

Hutchins also said he intends to begin the interviewing process after April vacation.

The Cougars only had two seniors on this year’s team. That could make Dirigo a formidable team next season.

“It’s not about me, it’s about the girls,” Weston said. “Whoever takes over, I hope they succeed. I hope they can get what they want. I don’t want anything bad to happen to these girls. The No. 1 priority to me is the team. This is a very special group of kids. They’re very coachable. I’m happy with what we did.”

Weston said he’s worked with many of the girls on the team for years. He’s focused on their fundamentals and tried to help them learn the game Despite being a relatively young team, Dirigo greatly improved as the season went on and produced one of the best season’s the program has seen in recent years.

“The Mountain Valley Conference is awfully tough,” Weston said. “I’m very proud of the fact that the coaching staff and I have accumulated 84 wins and 54 losses in a very tough conference. This year, we could have been 15-3. We lost three games by one point and those could have gone either way. We lost to Carrabec by three. We beat a very good St. Dom’s team that hadn’t lost to a Class C team all year. We did it twice. So I thought we did a pretty good job.”

kmills@sunjournal.com

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