Familiar Barnes gives Eagles new look on varsity bench

By ECS Staff
Updated: February 22, 2016

2016 EAST COUNTY PREP SOFTBALL

By Adam Paul
© East County Sports.com
EL CAJON (2-22-16) — It will be a new era starting this spring for the Granite Hills Eagles Softball program as longtime head coach ERIN COYNE will hand over the reins over to a familiar face to the program in CURTIS BARNES.

Coyne who finished with a 139-105-2 overall record guided the Eagles to a CIF Division I Championship in 2008 with a 7-1 victory over La Costa Canyon to finish 24-7-1 on the season and in the final rankings were ranked fourth. She guided the Eagles to a Grossmont Hills League Tri-Championship in 2012 and finally this past year led them to a Grossmont Valley League Championship which would lead to a run in the playoffs to the Division II Championship where they would fall 2-0 to La Costa Canyon and finish as runners up to finish 24-10 on the season and in the final rankings finish fifth.

Barnes

Barnes who takes over for Coyne is no stranger to softball in the East County as he has been coaching since 1994 starting at East County ASA and has been coaching a local travel team the past 4 years. He also has been coaching at Granite Hills since 2005 and has coached at the JV level until getting the head job this year.

Coach Barnes and his wife with their three children, two daughters Brandi and Nichole and their son Cody reside in Crest. Nichole who is the oldest played softball, Brandi played both softball and volleyball and Cody played football, lacrosse and baseball.

Sports runs in the family as Barnes himself ran cross country and played both basketball and baseball in high school and also some travel baseball. He also played on both Mens and Co-ed softball teams.

As far as the softball program at Granite Hills, Barnes is very optimistic as evidenced by the slight uptick in girls wanting to play for the school from years past. He will have plenty to draw from as his JV team last year went 20-7-1 overall and 9-1 in league and of course any incoming players as well.