Baseball – Bill Beining Hired as Donovan Catholic Coach

The returning Donovan Catholic baseball players met their new varsity head coach Wednesday when newly-approved head coach Bill Beining was introduced to new team for the first time.

"This is always a competitive program and from everything I've heard, it's a program with a lot of hard-working kids," Beining said. "With that foundation, you can build something. There is a good foundation and a lot of support here, so I'm excited."

Beining was an assistant for the past nine years under Ken Frank at Toms River South, where Beining played for the Indians before graduating in 1996. He was a sophomore on the 1994 NJSIAA Group III championship team that finished ranked No. 1 in the state and most recently coached the freshman team at Toms River South.

"In a way, I learned how to play baseball from Ken Frank," Beining said. "I played for him and then I coached with him and got to work with him behind the scenes, so I got to experience both ends of the spectrum and got a pretty unique perspective.

"All the wins and all the championships, that's a big part of his legacy, but I look at the way he treats the kids and the hard work he puts in to help them becoming better players and better people. Winning will hopefully take care of itself, but I want kids to be able to coome into the program, learn the game, become better players and better young men. That's the vision."

In addition to playing under Frank, Beining was also a football standout and played both football and baseball at Gettysburg College. He served as an assistant at Central Regional for four years after graduating college before joining the staff at Toms River South.

The Griffins are coming off a 14-13 season in the Shore Conference Class B South in 2015 and return most of its young pitching staff from last year. Seniors Kyle Malloy and Nick Povoa and juniors Zach Mann and Bart Goble all pitched meaningful innings and Malloy and junior Mike Marron were both productive in the top two-thirds of the batting order.