Glendale selects Casey Sripramong as new girls’ swim and water polo coach

As a player, Casey Sripramong brought plenty of determination to the Glendale High girls’ water polo team.

Sripramong will now look to provide a similar imprint after she was recently named the school’s new girls’ aquatics coach.

Sripramong takes over for Forest Holbrook, who held both jobs and also served as the school’s boys’ aquatics coach the past five seasons before resigning in the spring to become an assistant principal at Crescenta Valley.

“It’s something that I’m really excited about,” said Sripramong, who graduated from Glendale in 2008 and University of Redlands in 2012 before serving as an assistant for Holbrook the last two seasons. “It will be my first head coaching responsibility and I want to further make the teams much better.

“My heart has always been at Glendale. I want to instill some of the things I was taught as a player and teach them to the players we have. After college, I just wanted to be a part of water polo and swimming.”

Sripramong, 23, enjoyed a remarkable career at Glendale. In water polo, she was a force as a utility player in helping the Nitros advance to the CIF Southern Section Division IV semifinals in 2007. It’s the farthest the program has gone in its history. Sripramong earned All-Pacific League, All-CIF and All-Area recognition in water polo and is a former league swimming champion in the 50-yard freestyle.

She bided her time in hopes of becoming a head coach, learning the ropes from Holbrook.

“Forest brought a positive dynamic to the team,” Sripramong said. “I learned a lot from him.

“It’s not so much about replacing him, but just bringing my style in and trying to help the teams.”

The water polo team finished 15-8 and took second in league behind Crescenta Valley before reaching the first round of the Division V playoffs. Glendale suffered a 15-6 road loss against Redlands East Valley. The swimming team will look to add some additional depth in its quest for improvement.

“With Casey, it’s about having the best of both worlds,” Glendale athletic director Pat Lancaster said. “She gained a great deal of experience as a player and had a lot of grit.

“Those are the kind of things you can teach. She was a feisty player and a very fast swimmer. Forest groomed her to take over the coaching positions. She ran a lot of the water polo practices last year.”

Stephen Whittier was named the school’s boys’ aquatics coach in early July.

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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com

Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich