CB West hires Charles Cathers as head coach

After a tumultuous end to its season, Central Bucks West football has a new head coach.

Per an emailed press release sent Wednesday by athletic director Sean Kelly, CB West has appointed Charles Cathers to take over the program.

Cathers is CB West grad who played football at both West and Ursinus College. He was the defensive coordinator at New Hope-Solebury. The Lions went 4-8 and 3-4 in the Bicentennial Athletic League last year. Cathers has also previously been an assistant at Hatboro-Horsham.

Central Bucks West canceled and forfeited its final two games of the 2014 season — homecoming against Central Bucks East and William Tennent — and suspended head coach Brian Hensel and the team’s staff in October over a hazing scandal. In November, Central Bucks School District superintendent David Weitzel announced Hensel would no longer be the Bucks’ head coach.

Central Bucks West football was one of the state’s elite programs in the 1990s under Mike Pettine, Sr., reaching six PIAA Class AAAA title games, winning the state crown four times (1991, 1997, 1998, 1999) and setting a then-state record for consecutive wins with 59 between 1997-2000.

The program, however, struggled in the middle part of the last decade, never winning more than three games between 2005-2008. Hensel was hired in 2008 and after going 1-10 in his first season, led the Bucks to a 30-25 mark the next four, including nine-win seasons and appearances in the District 1-AAAA quarterfinals in both 2010 and 2013.

CB West finished 2-8 last season — 2-6 before cancelling its last two games — with wins over Souderton Week 2 and Council Rock South Week 6.