DADE CITY – Warren Lowery, who has spent the last five seasons at Pasco as an assistant to Boys soccer coach Barry Grayling and the last 19 years as a head coach in East Pasco club soccer, was named Head Coach of the Pirates’ girls team on Tuesday.

He replaces Wardell Powell, who resigned the position in January after an 11-10-1 2007-08 season and an overall record of 61-45-8.

“With my youngest son [Ryan Lowery, a star defender on the ’08 boys team] having graduated this year, I saw this as a good chance to move up while I can,” said Lowery.

“I know pretty much the core of the team coming back, and it’s a good little core. I’m going to try to take some of the philosophies we used with the boys team. I know there’s some talent there and hopefully it’ll take something like that to bring it out of them.”

The Pasco Boys team was 80-36-8 with Lowery as an assistant under Grayling, including 65-9-5 in the last three years. They also won at least one regional playoff game in each of those years. In addition to his assistant duties, Lowery served as head coach of Pasco’s JV Boys team, one of the most dominant in the county.

He had applied for the Girls’ job months ago, but the hiring was delayed due to the uncertainty surrounding Pasco County’s athletic budget.

As for the now-vacant Boys’ assistant job, Lowery formally resigned that position upon learning of his hiring and the job is not expected to be filled for at least two weeks.