Claysburg-Kimmel hired Matthew Claar to be its new high school boys basketball coach at its board meeting last Wednesday.

Claar replaces Mike Harris, who resigned last month, after leading the Bulldogs to a 20-win season, their most wins in a single season in school history.

Claar will be entering his third year teaching at Claysburg-Kimmel in the fall and recently had a chance to meet with his returning players.

“I got hired on Wednesday, and we had a summer league game at Building II on Thursday,” Claar said. “I was able to meet the kids, see how they played a little bit. I think our big advantage is that we’re going to be pretty athletic. With me teaching there, I’m familiar with a lot of the kids and the players, and I think the future is bright. We need to get in the gym and see how we’re going to be playing and how we’re going to be doing things. Once they do that, I think the future is bright.”

Claar has been coaching for parts of 14 years and was the head boys basketball coach at Chestnut Ridge from 2018-2020. He also coached at Ferndale as an assistant under current Johnstown boys basketball coach Ryan Durham.

He left Chestnut Ridge after COVID-19 but opted to get back into it when the Claysburg job opened and his wife was supportive of him getting back into coaching.

“Something that you have to do, especially at a small school, is make basketball appealing and fun,” Claar said. “That’s something that I think we can definitely do. That has to start with the elementary program and trying to get a lot of kids out for that in the winter. There’s a camp we will be doing in a few weeks for elementary kids, so hopefully there’ll be a lot of folks that come out for that.”

Messages left with Claysburg-Kimmel athletic director Corey Reffner were unreturned.