Brian Deem has accomplished a lot during his time as the head coach for Boyle County. This year, he led the Rebels to their third straight 12th region title, and a trip to the KHSAA State Tournament. 

While the season ended sooner than he may have wanted, when Boyle ran into eventual state champions Male in the quarterfinals, a pair of double digit win streaks marked the level of dominance the 12th region champs had over the course of a 38 game season, especially within the district and region. The loss in the 45th District Championship to Garrard County was the only divisional and regional loss the Rebels suffered this year.

Last week, Deem was honored as a coach in the Kentucky-Tennessee All-Star Series, leading Kentucky to a 2-1 series win with a pair of shutouts. Now, he’s also being named the Advocate-Messenger’s All-Area Coach of the Year.

“It’s a great honor, and I’m proud of it. It’s definitely something that I’m more a benefactor of than anything else,” Deem said of the award. “Coach of the Year, to me, is a credit to the staff and the kids. I’m fortunate enough to get the recognition. You got to have great help, and great players to be able to accomplish things and I’ve been fortunate enough to have that.”

Sustained success is not something Deem is a stranger to. This year’s loss to Garrard in the district championship snapped a streak of seven consecutive 45th district titles for the Rebels.

One of the things Deem wanted to achieve this year was to schedule a difficult out of region schedule to prepare his team for the state tournament. Part of that was scheduling Male to begin the season. In the rematch against the Bulldogs in the quarterfinals, the teams were evenly matched until Male broke through in the fourth.

Even still, Deem was proud that his team never backed down from a challenge. Never was this exemplified more than in three consecutive tight games in the postseason, in which Boyle had to hold a one run lead with runners on in the seventh.

“I told them going into the Woodford game in the seventh inning, I said ‘We’ve had three or four games like this in the last two or three weeks’,” Deem said about that stretch of games. “‘You’ve been here. You know how to find a way to win, so find a way to win’.”

Next year, the Rebels will again enter the season as the presumed favorite in the district and region, returning all but one of the key contributors from this year.