Sauvain resigns Lady Vike girls basketball post
AVOCA -- Steve Sauvain has stepped down as the high school principal and girls head basketball coach at AHSTW.
Sauvain has accepted the position of Field Director with the Green Hills Area Education Agency in southwest Iowa, calling it a professional opportunity that was too good to pass up.
He will continue his duties as AHSTW principal until early June.
“I have the opportunity to impact schools on a bigger scale,” Sauvain said of his AEA job. “I have always tried to move up in my career. I became an athletic director to help young coaches, I became an administrator to help young teachers and I am becoming a field director to help principals in a large geographical area.
“AHSTW has been a dream job for me and I loved my time there. This opportunity was one of those you simply cannot ignore.”
Sauvain is leaving the Lady Vike girls basketball program in great shape after guiding the team to a 35-11 record during the last two years. He inherited a team that was on the rise after going 11-12 in 2017-18, then coached AHSTW to its first winning record (15-7) in many years in 2018-19.
This past season was the Lady Vikes’ most successful in nearly two decades as they finished 20-4 overall, went 14-2 in winning their first Western Iowa Conference title since 2001 and fell one point shy of their first state tournament berth since 2001 following a 36-35 loss to Logan-Magnolia in the Class 2A regional finals.
“The relationships between coach and athletes is always what drives me,” said Sauvain, whose résumé includes a 392-207 career coaching record and membership in the Iowa Girls’ Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“I love taking a team and molding them into something they didn’t realize they could become. My proudest accomplishment is re-establishing the girls program at AHSTW. The girls now have a winning culture based on a sisterhood."
Next year’s Lady Vikes will have high expectations with four returning starters, led by second-team All-State forward Kailey Jones. Jones led the team with 16.6 points per game as a junior and led Class 2A with 12.6 rebounds per game while shooting 59.4 percent from the field.
Also back will be Claire Denning (11.0 ppg., 59 steals, 64 assists), Claire Harris (9.6 ppg.), Julia Kock (2.7) and Morgan Heiny (2.2). Harris paced the team with 31 made three-pointers, 65 steals and 77 assists as a junior.
Sauvain’s list of career coaching stops include Omaha Marian, Ralston, Hemingford, Pender, Auburn and Nebraska City Lourdes in Nebraska, as well as Shenandoah, Nishnabotna and AHSTW in Iowa.