Flashes’ coach moving on after three seasons at helm

Derrik Boland’s voice cracked with emotion as he talked about Saturday’s season-ending playoff loss to Stringer.

Losses are always tough to take, and playoff defeats even moreso. This one was among the most difficult to stomach.

It was his last.

Boland is leaving the program he’s guided for the last three seasons. He’s moving to Birmingham with his fianceé, Molly Tyner, who is entering graduate school for pathobiology at UAB.

Boland led the Flashes to a 40-39 record since arriving in 2011 — they’re 34-21 the last two years — and back-to-back division championships.

This year ended with a three-game loss to Stringer in the first round of the Class 1A playoffs. St. Al won the first game of the series 9-1, then lost the next two. It left the Flashes well short of the state championship they so desperately wanted, and that Boland wanted to lead them to.

“It’s harder to swallow when you know you’re gone, too,” Boland said, “When you come in and you get a group of kids when you first get here, they were down on a lot of stuff. The strength wasn’t there with what they thought about themselves.

“They give you 2 1/2, three years of just busting their butts,” he continued. “A group of kids gives you that, and it’s hard to swallow that pill. They gave you everything they had and you feel like you failed them. It’s a terrible feeling to leave them with and to see the looks on their faces.”

Although Boland wasn’t able to get the Flashes a championship ring, he did lead them back to prominence in the Class 1A ranks.

St. Al won the second of back-to-back state titles in 2010, but eight of its nine starters graduated, coach Clint Wilkerson also departed, and several key underclassmen transferred to other schools.

Wilkerson’s replacement, Chris Wright, left the job just days before the 2011 season because of a family emergency. The team went 3-18 under Jacan Warren, who was not retained after the season.

Boland stepped into that chaotic situation and started to rebuild around a core of hungry young players. He went 6-18 his first season, then won the Division 7-1A championship in 2013 and 2014.

St. Al reached the playoffs all three seasons Boland was coach.

“Coach Boland helped us turn it around a lot over the last couple of years,” St. Al senior pitcher and infielder Pat Murphy said. “He really steered us in the right direction and helped us reach our full potential. We all gave him 100 percent and he gave us 100 percent, without a doubt. This program has a good future.”

Indeed it does. Seven of 10 regular starters are expected back for the 2015 season, including five seniors. One of them, pitcher-infielder Drake Dorbeck, said Boland has helped the team build a strong foundation that will carry on with whoever his successor is.

“We have five or six juniors coming back to be seniors, and I think we’re going to have a lot of leadership and keep going,” Dorbeck said.

St. Al athletic director B.J. Smithhart said the school hopes to have its next coach in place by the end of the month, in time for the summer season in June. Boland quietly informed Smithhart of his decision weeks ago, giving the school plenty of time to begin making plans.

Smithhart said Boland has helped smooth the transition, too, by making both the summer schedule and the 2015 schedule.

“He’s left us in dang good shape,” Smithhart said. “We’ve started the process and hope to have somebody before school’s out so we can have a summer program.”

Smithhart, like the players, was also full of praise for the rebuilding job Boland did in his stint at St. Al.

“Derrik did a dang good job. He’s got us back to playing some really good baseball. The kids have bought in, and now it’s our job to try and keep it going and find a guy to continue that,” Smithhart said.