After helping guide St. Vincent’s girls basketball program to unprecedented success over the last 6 seasons, Mel Kirn is stepping away from the sidelines.
Kirn, who led the Lady Indians to 107 wins, 3 district championships, 2 conference titles and 2 state runner-up finishes, recently announced his retirement after 6 seasons as head coach, citing a desire to spend more time with his family and grandchildren. St. Vincent has already named longtime coach and St. Vincent alum Caitlin Pistorio as his successor.
For Kirn, the decision came down to timing.
“Yeah, but it’s been coming,” Kirn said. “I’m a grandpa to these girls, you know, we need newer stuff. My wife wants to do some traveling, I want to do traveling with her, and now we’ve got a couple grandsons playing college ball, so I want to watch them play college ball and soccer this fall. It’s kind of the right time.”
Even in retirement, Kirn leaves behind one of the most successful stretches in program history.
In 6 seasons at the helm, the Lady Indians compiled a 107-57 record while becoming a consistent postseason contender. St. Vincent captured district championships in 2021, 2022 and 2024, won 2 conference titles and reached the state championship game twice, finishing runner-up in both Class 2 and Class 3.
Kirn said the accomplishments were the product of a program-wide effort, crediting assistant coaches Matt Rubel, Amy Cates and Jack Rigdon, along with players who bought into the culture.
“It takes a village to make this thing work,” Kirn said. “I had good assistants. I had great people on the bench with me and it was just a family.”
Kirn pointed to chemistry as one of the defining characteristics of the teams he coached.
“The girls had fun on the bus, we just partied and had a great time,” Kirn said. “They got along good together and that’s the main thing. They don’t have any turmoil, no drama, and the girls got along well and that is what makes a winner.”
This season’s state runner-up finish in Class 3 represented another milestone for the program, though Kirn said the Lady Indians simply ran into a powerhouse in the championship game.
“There wasn’t a team in the final four that could beat Principia that day,” Kirn said. “They were just that hot. They’re a great ball club, and we got beat by a great ball club.”
Kirn said he also takes pride in the level of competition St. Vincent faced throughout the season, noting that 7 of the team’s 8 losses came against programs that reached deep postseason runs.
While Kirn is stepping down as head coach, his connection to St. Vincent athletics will remain.
Kirn, who turns 72 in September, said he has been involved with the school for more than 4 decades. His children attended St. Vincent, and he coached grade school sports for roughly 14 years before helping with football, basketball and baseball programs at various levels.
“For 41 years, I’ve been involved in something,” Kirn said. “And now when I’m retiring, I’ll still be kind of running the buses a little bit and stuff like that.”
The longtime coach said one factor that made retirement easier was knowing the program would be handed to someone he trusts.
“I know the program won’t slack,” Kirn said. “It will still keep going, and she’s a good person. I coached her when she was in grade school, and I know what she’s got inside of her. She’s got a big heart, and our program is in great hands.”
That confidence now shifts to Pistorio, a 2003 St. Vincent graduate who returns to the basketball sidelines after becoming one of the school’s most successful coaches in another sport.
Though many in Perryville know Pistorio for leading the St. Vincent girls soccer program to two state championships and a state runner-up finish, basketball has long been part of her background.
Pistorio said she played travel basketball before focusing on soccer and has spent the last several years coaching youth basketball locally.
“I’ve been coaching youth basketball here for the last couple years for my daughter,” Pistorio said. “I actually started playing travel basketball before I played travel soccer.”
She hopes her experience can help continue developing local players while keeping them invested in hometown programs.
“Trying to keep our kids local and realize they can get good training here locally and play competitive locally is a huge push on my part,” Pistorio said.
Pistorio’s coaching resume already includes considerable success. She guided the Lady Indians soccer team to state titles in 2017 and 2018, followed by a state runner-up finish in 2019. She was also named Missouri’s Statewide Coach of the Year in 2018.
Now, she hopes to bring a similar mindset to basketball.
“I love teaching and coaching and just trying to get girls to see what they think their limit is, get them past that and realize they can do more than what they expect,” Pistorio said. “I just love that moment where you see that player light up because they’ve accomplished something they’ve been working at.”
Pistorio said many of the current and future players already know her through youth camps and local sports, though she understands many still primarily view her as a soccer coach.
“Hopefully they’ll get to know me as a basketball coach,” Pistorio said.
Kirn believes the transition comes at the right time for both the coach and the program.
“A lot of times you’re worried who’s going to come in and whether the girls will go out for them,” Kirn said. “We built a great program here, all of us. We don’t want it to fall on its face. We want it to keep going, keep being strong.”
Though Kirn admitted concern over the possibility of St. Vincent moving up a classification because of enrollment changes, he believes the Lady Indians remain positioned for continued success under Pistorio’s leadership.
“I know she’ll do a great job,” Kirn said.
