Girls soccer: Hannah McCray continues tenure at Elyria High as new head coach

Hannah McCray has a new title but she's hardly new to the Elyria soccer program. McCray was named the Elyria girls coach at Wednesday'a board of education meeting, replacing Emil Haitonic, who coached the team for one season last year. "I am really grateful to be blessed with this role," McCray said. "I see a lot of potential in our program and I wanted to be the continuing piece for that." McCray, a 2019 Elyria High grad, takes over a team that won 17 games over the past two seasons and went 7-10 in 2025, highlighted by wins over Midview and Columbia. She's spent eight of the past 11 years at Elyria, four as a student athlete and four as assistant coach. "This program has been very, very important to me for quite a while," McCray said. "I think looking back I can see the way this program has changed my life and what I wanted out of life and values." McCray was a first-team Division I All-Lorain County selection during her senior season in 2018. Shortly after, she decided to get into coaching. "I remember back about seven years ago I was helping out my former high school coach with some of the winter league stuff," McCray said. "There was a moment that I helped a player and I saw a little bit of a result. I think that moment kinda sparked the idea that I can make a difference with people and help them. That moment was a defining moment of figuring out what I wanted in my life." McCray's dedication to the Pioneers showed the Elyria administration what it was looking for in a new coach. "We are excited to have Hannah at the helm of our girls soccer program," Pioneers athletic director Heather Beck said in a press release. "Her passion for the school, dedication to our students and knowledge of the game make her the ideal person to lead this team." Soccer is about more than wins and losses and x's and o's for McCray. It's a vehicle to prepare girls for the game of life. "I've learned a lot of leadership qualities since I started with this program," McCray said. "There's a lot of things I wish I would have heard when I was in high school and I would like to be a source of that for our girls moving forward. I think the biggest thing that I have going right now is I've already built the trust relationship. "High school is such a big transitional period. I want to give them the best tools I can to prepare them for the adult world, if that means college athletics or the work world or whatever that transition may be." After allowing over 80 goals in each of the 2023-24 seasons, Elyria only conceded 51 last year. "It didn't necessarily show in the record but this past season we had one of our best seasons," McCray said. "We had a lot of continued growth. I know for me it's about more than wins and losses. It's about how the kids feel after these games. Even if we don't have the result, we ask ourselves 'are we playing with consistency, are we playing at a high level.'" Contact Todd Shapiro at (440) 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.