Elyria Catholic promotes Palmer to head coach

Elyria Catholic announced Sept. 23 it has promoted assistant Rob Palmer to head boys basketball coach.

Palmer served as an assistant last season under former coach Phil Kuchta, who resigned Aug. 18 to take an assistant coaching position at Baldwin Wallace.

Prior to joining the Elyria Catholic program, Palmer, a Brookside and Bluffton College graduate, coached under Pat Bray at Amherst and Joe Schill at Brookside.

The Panthers finished 12-12 last season and ended the year with a 68-63 loss to Beachwood in a Division III district semifinal.

Kuchta was 99-73 in seven seasons at Elyria Catholic and won two conference titles — a West Shore Conference Championship in 2015 and a Great

Lakes Conference championship in 2017.

The team also graduated the program’s alltime leading scorer in Dorian Crutcher, who was named 2017-18 Lorain County Mr. Basketball — the third Elyria Catholic player to win the award in its 43-year history. Crutcher averaged 23.2 points per game his senior year and added 77 3-pointers. He is the Panthers’ all-time 3-point leader (164) and scored 1,248 career points to top a record held by Bobby Holliday since 1966.

Despite losing Crutcher, Palmer inherits a team with an expected seven returners, including four starters, and has dates with St. Ignatius and Cleveland Central Catholic on the schedule as well as GLC rivals Bay and Holy Name as the Panthers once again embark on one of the toughest schedules of area teams.