Ben Lippen, Westwood fill basketball coaching vacancies
Longtime friends John Combs and Jeff DiBattisto will be coaching basketball in different places next season.
Combs is leaving Ridge View after 11 seasons to become the coach at Ben Lippen, while DiBattisto takes over at Westwood after spending three seasons at Dreher. Both Combs and DiBattisto were team managers at South Carolina when the Gamecocks won the SEC championship in 1996-97.
“I guess we have been joined at the hip,” DiBattisto said. “I have known John for a long time, and he is such a great guy and I am so happy for him.”
Combs replaces Ryan Molony, who took a job with a church in Lexington. Ben Lippen has made the SCISA 3A playoffs the past three seasons. He will be the third new boys coach in SCISA 1-3A this season. Hammond and Cardinal Newman also hired new coaches this offseason.
“It was a tough decision for me,” Combs said. “I’m leaving a great situation for another one. There wasn’t another job I could leave Ridge View for than this one. There is nothing against Ridge View. They gave me everything I needed.”
Combs’ two children attend Ben Lippen, and that is one of the biggest reasons for the move. It will give him an opportunity to see more of their activities as they get older.
Combs had a successful run at Ridge View and led the Blazers to the playoffs in 10 of his 11 seasons there. Ridge View won two region titles, and played for a state championship in 2011 when it lost to Irmo. The Blazers also made it to the Lower State semifinals in 2007 and 2013.
Ridge View went 15-9 this year and lost in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs.
In addition to coaching, he was a member of the South Carolina Basketball Coaches Association board and heavily involved with Bojangles’ Bash at Ridge View.
Westwood will be DiBattisto’s third coaching stop. He has a career record of 129-77 in eight seasons. He takes over for Terry Dozier, who was let go after four seasons. The Redhawks went 11-11 and missed the playoffs this year.
Westwood loses nine seniors from this year’s team, including leading scorer Jordan Watson.
“Westwood doesn’t have a ton of basketball history, so you can forge your own path and do some things that haven’t been done before. That is definitely appealing to me,” DiBattisto said. “There is a ton of potential there. The key this summer will be to evaluate the players and implement our system.”
DiBattisto said he’s looking forward to working with Westwood athletics director Jason Powell, who he knows from when Powell was a coach at Richland Northeast.
DiBattisto coached five years at Bishop England from 2005-10, and led the Bishops to a pair of region titles before becoming athletics director at Cardinal Newman for three years.
In 2013, DiBattisto was hired at Dreher and led the Blue Devils to the region title that year. Dreher made it to the Class 3A Upper State semifinals in his first two seasons. He also coached Tevin Mack, who just finished his freshman season at Texas.
“It was a neat experience to coach Tevin and we had a ton of talented teams,” DiBattisto said. “The high level of competition we played against in our region and going up against A.C. Flora, Lower Richland and Richland Northeast was something I really enjoyed.”
This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 9:14 AM.