Pine Tree hired Derek Fitzhenry as its new athletic director and head football coach during Monday night’s regular school board meeting.

Fitzhenry spent the past eight seasons at Giddings, where he went 73-23 and led the Class 3A Buffaloes to first- or second-place district finishes seven times.

Fitzhenry took Giddings as far as the 2008 state semifinals, where the Buffaloes lost to eventual state champion Carthage. In addition to the 3A Division II state semifinalist run, Fitzhenry led Giddings to two other appearances in regional finals in 2005 and 2006.

“We experienced great success in Giddings and set many historical marks in all sports,” Fitzhenry said in a press release.

Fitzhenry replaces Huey Chancellor, who left Pine Tree in early February to take the head coaching and AD spot at Rockport-Fulton, a 3A program near Corpus Christi. Chancellor was 2-18 in two seasons with the Pirates.

Fitzhenry’s Buffaloes beat Chancellor’s Bellville team 21-20 in overtime in the 2008 3A Division II Region IV final to reach the state semifinal round.

With Fitzhenry as its athletic director, Giddings also saw its baseball team reach the 3A state championship game each of the past two seasons, losing to Carthage in 2009 and Pleasant Grove in 2010. Giddings’ girls basketball team advanced to the 2010 state semifinals, and the softball team has made seven consecutive playoff appearances.

“We’ve conducted an extensive search and we believe we’ve found the best match for the Pine Tree Pirates,” said Superintendent Marian Strauss in a press release.

Fitzhenry takes over a Pine Tree program that has gone nine seasons without a playoff appearance and eight without a winning record. The Pirates are 15-57 during the past eight seasons, the best of which came in 2007 when they finished 5-5 overall and 2-5 in district play. The two wins were the last district victories for Pine Tree.