{"id":199650,"date":"2026-05-22T07:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199650\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T07:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:54:10","slug":"sammy-barona-set-to-take-over-hawks-lehigh-valley-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/199650\/","title":{"rendered":"Sammy Barona set to take over Hawks \u2013 Lehigh Valley Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published May 21. 2026 11:14AM<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Bethlehem Catholic has named Sammy Barona as the new head coach of the boys\u2019 basketball program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Barona takes over for Scott McClary, who retired this past season after eight years at the helm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Barona has over 20 years of experience as a player and coach, as he\u2019s Lehigh Carbon Community College\u2019s all-time leading scorer, had a standout career at Kutztown and then played 10 years professionally in France and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">\u201cSammy Barona embodies everything we value in Bethlehem Catholic athletics: leadership, integrity and a commitment to developing the whole student-athlete,\u201d said Bethlehem Catholic athletic director Stephen Tomaszewski. \u201cHis experience as a professional player, combined with his ability to develop high-level talent and built meaningful relationships, makes him the ideal leader for our program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">Barona founded basketball L.A.B, a player developmental program in the area, following his playing days and helped coach and foster some of the area\u2019s top talent over the years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">The Hawks were 12-11 last year and Barona looks forward to this next challenge in his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__body\">\u201cThis is a special community with a proud tradition,\u201d said Barona. \u201cMy goal is to build a program rooted in discipline, toughness and accountability, while developing young men who succeed on the court, in the classroom and in life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published May 21. 2026 11:14AM Bethlehem Catholic has named Sammy Barona as the new head coach of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-199650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}