Winningest girls coach happy to return home
Bill Pfeifer is no stranger to winning, but he’s also no stranger to moving.
During his acclaimed coaching career, Pfeifer has made stops at Center, Seneca Valley, Moon, Hopewell and now Central Valley High School. When he begins his tenure as the Warriors’ girls soccer coach this fall, he’ll be taking over his third new team in the past four years.
More than that, though, he’ll also be coming home.
“I can go up through the backyard and through the woods and be at the high school,” Pfeifer said. “If I walk, it’s five minutes. If I drive, it’s 45 seconds, even with traffic.”
It’s the kind of career arc one might expect from a coach who has had his fair share of ups and downs, but not from Pfeifer.
Last year, Pfeifer became the alltime wins leader among girls soccer coaches in Pennsylvania, surpassing former Hampton coach Frank Christy’s mark of 435 career wins. In 24 years as a head coach across four different programs, his teams have never missed the postseason. Going into this season, Pfeifer holds a career record of 44172-20.
Oftentimes, coaches who have a hard time winning somewhere will leave in search of greener pastures. Pfeifer, though, leaves a Hopewell program he infused with new life when he took over in 2018, having led the Vikings to a WPIAL Class 2A championship game appearance in his first year as coach. In 2019, Hopewell earned a No. 1 seed for the WPIAL playoffs and finished 12-3.
So, why the need for a fresh start for Pfeifer?
“The numbers kept dropping, so I had a talk with [Hopewell athletic director Donnie Short] at the end of last year,” Pfeifer said. “Even though we’ve only lost five or six games in the last two years, some kids didn’t like it because it was too much of a commitment. Some of them didn’t want to put the time in.
“So after I talked to him, we thought it would be best for me to move on.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Pfeifer has left for another school despite having a good thing going
on at his former program.
Prior to his two-year stint with the Vikings, Pfeifer spent 17 seasons at Moon, leading the Tigers to back-to-back WPIAL and PIAA Class 3A titles in 2016 and 2017 and posting a 51-1 record over his last two years there. He also left his first coaching gig at Center after a WPIAL Class 2A championship in 1998 to take over at Seneca Valley.
Pfeifer said various reasons contributed to each of those decisions to switch schools, but this time, he plans on making himself comfortable for a while.
“I think my wife would kill me [if I left],” Pfeifer said with a laugh.
At Hopewell, Pfeifer rejuvenated a program that went 2-13 the year before he arrived, but he said there simply wasn’t enough of a “soccer culture” there among the students to keep him around.
Central Valley may not have the most storied tradition among girls soccer programs in the WPIAL, but the Warriors are only seven years removed from winning a WPIAL title in 2013. After finishing with an 8-8-1 record a year ago, it would appear the team is in position to take the next step toward returning to the postseason and making a run at another championship.
“I think we’ll be all right to begin with,” Pfeifer said. “I’ve had kids from Central Valley who played club for me before, so I’ve always had some connection to the community and the program.”
Pfeifer said senior midfielder Audra Kuzma, who is coming off a knee injury, will be one of the players he turns to for leadership in his first season with the team. Meanwhile, he expects big things from sophomore Sara Weigel, who earned a spot on the 2019 AllWPIAL team as a freshman.
“Both of them show up for everything,” Pfeifer said. “They don’t just rest on their laurels. But most of the kids are like that, though.”
Considering how swiftly Pfeifer managed to engineer a turnaround at Hopewell, it wouldn’t be out of the question to envision a similarly rapid ascent to the top of the WPIAL for the Warriors. Still, Pfeifer isn’t getting caught up in the hype or expectations that come with his reputation.
More than anything, he just wants to see the girls take the field and enjoy the season after spending so much time away from the game during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The kids just want to play,” Pfeifer said. “We played a scrimmage up in New York just about two weeks ago, and just the difference in the kids’ attitudes — it didn’t matter, win or lose, who we played — they were able to play.
“And hopefully we get the chance this year, and I can be a part of it.”