Fort Hill's Zach Steckman wins boys Coach of the Year

CUMBERLAND — When Zach Steckman took over the Fort Hill program for his former coach Jim Hott, seasons like the 2025 one were what he envisioned.

The Sentinels won 11 straight games to claim the area’s best regular-season record at 12-2, earning the No. 1 seed in the Class 1A West Region I playoffs. The mark was also the best in all of Class 1A.

Fort Hill ended up falling in the region semifinals to Mountain Ridge, but, after recording double-digit wins for the first time since 2019 — and just three years removed from a 1-12 season — Steckman was selected as area boys soccer Coach of the Year by his peers.

“It’s a huge honor,” said Steckman, who played for Hott at Fort Hill from 2008-11. “Nobody really wants to win Coach of the Year. There were so many deserving guys in this room tonight, but it’s a huge honor.

“It’s not an individual award at all. We’ve got six or seven other guys on the coaching staff who really do a lot of work.”

Steckman credited his assistant coaches Connor Hipp, Logan Mullery, Ethan Whitacre, Austin Parker, Gentree Squires and Chuck Raines for their work throughout the season.

The players put in the work too, something Steckman implored them to do after a 3-0 loss to Mountain Ridge in 2024 capped a disappointing 6-8-1 season.

“We had a meeting in January and I told them right there, right then and there, things have got to be different,” Steckman said. “Approach has got to be different. Your approach to off-season workouts, to practice, everything’s got to be different, and it was.

“It shouldn’t take a year where you struggle and you don’t have success for you to come back and want to work that hard. It’s a teenager’s mind, it’s just kind of how it goes, but they took that stuff in and we got to work a little earlier.”

Attendance at those workouts was exceptional, Steckman said, and he credited his seniors Liam Hamilton, Korbin McKenzie, Sam Spencer and Jacob Bone.

Those same seniors still had the memory of a 1-12 freshman campaign in 2022, best remembered for an 18-0 drubbing at the hands of Allegany in Homecoming, in their minds.

“They pushed the younger guys,” Steckman said. “We set some more difficult goals. This year we really set a standard, ‘This run needs to be this time. This shuttle needs to be this time.’ They bought into that.

“Those four senior leaders really pushed those guys through there.”

Fort Hill started off this year 1-2, but the Sentinels didn’t waver, winning 11 in row — including wins over teams ranked in the area poll in Allegany, 4-3, in overtime in Homecoming, Mountain Ridge, 2-0, Calvary, 4-3, and Frankfort, 5-2.

Hamilton led the area with 19 assists and was tied for fifth in goals with 17 to finish third in scoring at 3.53 points per game (53 points).

The senior’s selflessness fueled a balanced attack with four others with at least seven goals in Spencer (10), John Reinhardt (nine), Bone (eight) and Anthony Palumbo (seven).

Conversely, Hamilton had nearly four times as many assists as the next-closest Sentinel. McKenzie and Reinhardt were tied for second with five.

Fort Hill had uncertainty after last year about its goalkeeper, but junior Bobby Brauer joined the squad after not playing the sport since his JCP League days.

Brauer pitched eight cleansheets and allowed just two goals over a seven-game stretch in the middle of the season.

“Bobby Brauer didn’t have to do any field work because we had coaches who would take him and just drill him in the goal,” Steckman said. “I didn’t have to worry about the defense because I could send them with guys like Ethan Whitacre and Logan Mullery and Chuck.

“They could take care of those guys, and it’s why it’s a team award.”

Steckman also credited Fort Hill Principal Candy Canan and Athletic Director Gavin Palumbo.

“We don’t have practices at certain times if we don’t have all of those people supporting us.”

The rest of the area boys soccer awards will be revealed a day at a time, culminating with the All-Area team. Goalkeeper of the Year is next and will be announced in Thursday’s Times-News.