MARIETTA, Ohio — Our All-Decade Teams were assembled from interviews with former players, coaches and review of team records including All-Conference, All-Ohio and All-Region winners. We put players in the decade where they played the majority of their career or in cases where they played equal amount of seasons in each, where they had the most success in. Grad years on players that didn't complete their time at MC were what the expected grad year was meant to be. We tried to remain true to the positions played, but some may have been moved from one side to the other. Please understand that records are spotty, particularly in the early days and your memory may very well be correct.
For the first time in the history of the program, the decade began with the same coach that finished the previous decade. Patrick Holguin is named the Coach of the Decade and for good reason. He led the Pioneers thru the 2000s and finished his coaching history at Marietta in 2009 as the winningest coach in the program, on both the men's and women's sides.
On the men's side he finished his Marietta Career with 83 wins, which at the time was 40 wins higher than the previous leader, Phi Roach. To this day, he still leads the next closest coach, current head coach,
Joe Bergin, by 22 wins. On the women's side Patrick holds the all-time wins record with 87 and should hold this record for a number of years to come. Few understand the challenges of coaching both programs at the same time and Patrick managed to do it well, tying the men's record for most wins in a season with 12 in 2002 and setting the women's record in 2005 with 14. Both records still stand to this day.
Holguin helped orchestrate the most significant change in the program's history with the complete reconstruction of Marietta Field in 2005. The field was professionally rebuilt and a new scoreboard was added. Three years later the press box was constructed further cementing the program's status in the conference.
On the field, Holguin led the 2002 team to a 12-5-1 record which included a school record tying six wins in the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC). Patrick's biggest success came as the decade began to draw to a close. In 2007 the team made the OAC playoffs for the only the second time in the program's history and the first since the 1997 side.
In the 2008 year the team reached new heights going on a late season run of success, making the playoffs again and advancing to the finals for the first time where they lost to Ohio Northern 3-0 on a cold November day. The tournament wins in 2008 represented the first wins in the OAC tournament in the program's history and the only until eight years later in the 2016 season.
The team followed 2008's success with another playoff appearance in 2009 in what was Holguin's last year in charge of the program. They bowed out of the tournament with a first round 1-0 loss to Heidelberg. Athletic Director
Larry Hiser started the 2010 decade with a new coach in charge of the program when he hired Steve Rose to lead the Navy Blue and White.
Wednesday will be the Defensive Player of the Decade announcement and Friday is the Offensive Player of the Decade.
