O’Hara named Fairfield Prep coach

To follow legendary hockey coach Matt Sather, Fairfield Prep has chosen one of the championship players from his first teams.

The school named Vin O’Hara its fifth head coach on Monday. He had been on the school’s coaching staff since 2014 and was a coach of the junior varsity this past season.

“I am humbled to accept the position,” O’Hara said in the school’s statement. “Matt Sather, Rudy Mauritz, and their staff built a premier hockey program over the past 24 years, one that I am honored to say I was a part of as a player and coach. While it is the end of an era, I am eager to help the boys write the next chapter of Prep Hockey’s winning legacy.”

O’Hara was a defenseman on two state-championship teams, in 2000 and 2001, Sather’s first two full years as coach.

He joined the school’s faculty as an English and social studies teacher this past year, the school said, after stints at the Unquowa School and the Southport School.

“Throughout the search process Vin displayed a clear vision for all aspects of the Fairfield Prep Hockey program,” Jesuits athletic director Tom Curran said in the statement. “As a former player and assistant coach, Vin has seen firsthand what it takes for the hockey program to excel on and off the ice. He has a clear understanding of our school’s mission, and how to achieve it through athletics.”

Sather stepped down early last month after a 21-plus-season tenure that included 11 CIAC Division I championships, which ties him with Hamden’s Lou Astorino for the most ever by a state hockey coach. The Jesuits were 359-143-22 under Sather, an alumnus, and a varsity staff that included Mauritz (Prep’s baseball coach, where Sather assists him), Pat Ryan and Matt’s brother Tim Sather.

Marty Roos, Peter LaVigne and Adolph Brink were the school’s only other coaches in the team’s 50 seasons.