McKeen is new Peabody girls varsity basketball coach

The Peabody High girls basketball team will have a new yet familiar face on the bench this winter.Stan McKeen, who has coached the freshman team for 16 years, is the new Peabody girls varsity basketball coach. If McKeen?s name sounds familiar, it?s because he has also been the Peabody varsity boys soccer coach for 19 years.McKeen said he hoped the opportunity to coach the varsity program would present itself and it did following the retirement of long-time coach Jane Heil after the 2013-2014 season. Heil coached from 1977 until 1995. She took a couple of years off and then came back and coached from 1999 until 2014. When she retired this past spring, it was with a career record of 528 wins, 173 losses.McKeen will be joined on the bench by his daughter, Tracey (McKeen) Palazzola, who played for Heil and her successor, Diane Broughton, before going on to have a successful basketball career at Salem State. The younger McKeen, who has been the junior varsity coach in the Revere High program the last three years, will be the junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach.McKeen?s freshman teams have done very well, going undefeated the last three years. McKeen heads into the job familiar with who he has in the program.?I?m hoping to keep the tradition going,” McKeen said. “She (Heil) has had many good years.”McKeen, who retired from the General Electric last November, will inherit a team that just graduated four of its five starters, including Caroline Scacchi, Olivia Summit and Alex Lomasney. McKeen said one of the challenges he?ll face is the players coming up through the program don?t have the height Peabody teams have had in recent years.?Based on what we have coming back, we?re not going to be big. We?re going to be pushing the ball up court with a lot of man-to-man and full-court defense. We?re going to be pressuring the ball,” McKeen said.McKeen will be one of several new coaches in the Northeastern Conference next season. English High girls basketball coach Fred Hogan stepped down after taking his team to the Division 1 state semifinals. The Swampscott High girls basketball job, which was held by Abrom Roberts, is open and Diana DeCristoforo is the new Revere High girls basketball coach, according to Revere High athletic director Shaun Hart.The Revere job had been held by former Swampscott High and Stonehill College player Katelyn Leonard. Revere opens its coaching jobs every three years. DeCristoforo, who works in the Revere schools and played in and later coached the program for two years before taking an assistant coaching job at Salem State, applied and got the job.