Cardinal Mooney Catholic names new girls basketball coach
SARASOTA — Marlon Williams takes over a Cardinal Mooney Catholic High girls basketball team loaded with expectations.
He embraces them.
“To have expectations, it’s a good thing," he said. "To have expectations you set goals and you try to meet them. We’re just basically going to work hard and see if we can reach expectations and goals.
Cougars director of athletics Larry Antonucci named Williams as the team’s new girls basketball coach Monday. Williams replaces Rico Antonio, who coached Cardinal Mooney the past four seasons.
Antonio leaves: Antonio steps down as Cardinal Mooney girls basketball coach
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Headed to state: Mooney girls grind out win, advance to 3A state basketball final
The past two seasons, the Cougars reached the Class 3A state championship game, only to fall just short of the school’s first girls basketball state title.
“The goal and expectation is to get back and hopefully win it,” Williams said. “It’s a lot of work. We just have to stay focused and work hard the whole year.”
The 49-year-old Williams has seen the Cougars play during the past season and is familiar with most of the players. He worked out some of the players individually.
Cardinal Mooney is expected to return all except three senior players from last year’s team that finished 19-7 and lost 44-41 to Westminster Academy out of Fort Lauderdale. In 2021, the Cougars fell to Miami Country Day, 59-34, in the title game.
As far as his first order of business, Williams said he plans to “meet all the parents and get with the girls and set up our plans of attack in terms of working out and doing team camps and getting familiar with the players.”
He has a few candidates in mind to fill out his coaching staff, which Williams plans to do in the next few weeks.
Growing up in Pensacola, Williams attended Pine Forest High School before moving to Tallahassee where he attended Tallahassee Community College.
“Played basketball ever since I was in elementary school,” he said. “I love basketball.”
A Bradenton resident, Williams has relatives in Tampa and coaches in the FGB (Florida Girls Basketball) CW AAU program. He also trains players in Bradenton and Orlando.
“Basketball has changed a lot,” said Williams, a commercial real estate investor for MLW Investments LLC. “Of course, we have to play great defense. Defense would be the first order of business. We’ve got to be able to dribble and pass.
"A lot of people like threes, but I would like to be able to get to the point where we shoot some mid-range and dribble drives to the basket as much as possible and create situations for teammates to get easy layups or shots close to the basket.”
Dennis Maffezzoli is the deputy sports editor for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and chief reporter for Sarasota Herald-Tribune and HTpreps covering Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties. Support local journalism by subscribing.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Cardinal Mooney Catholic names new girls basketball coach
