ALTON – Marquette Catholic High School will begin the search for its next baseball coach as of Wednesday, June 4.
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It was announced that longtime head coach Tim Fahnestock would be stepping down after 11 seasons.
Fahnestock, who has just turned 50, will be enjoying his coaching retirement and watching his youngest son, Will, play collegiate baseball.
“I thought it was a good time,” Tim said. “Life’s short, I wanted to go watch him play.”
Fahnestock, who coached both of his sons at Marquette, Charlie (2023 graduate) and Will (2025 graduate), decided it was a good time to move on.
Will, who was Marquette’s starting goalkeeper for the soccer team, could have gone that route, but decided baseball was more for him. He’ll be playing at Illinois Central Community College in East Peoria. He plans to study mechanical engineering and transfer to Missouri S&T after his two years at ICCC.
Charlie also played both baseball and soccer for Marquette and chose soccer. He continued his playing career at Southwestern Illinois College, where he joined longtime friends and teammates Myles Paniagua, Brayden Zyung, and Joe Aiello.
Tim, who started as an assistant coach at Marquette in 1998 under Greg Decourcey, continued to be the assistant during Joe Silkwood’s five-year stint from 2008-2013.
Fahnestock was awarded the head coaching position in 2014.
2025 was his 11th season at the helm, amassing a record of 190-144 with the Explorers. Nine of those 11 seasons were winning ones, but only a single season (2017) saw the Explorers win a regional title.
“In the back of my mind, it would have been pretty cool to get to that 200 mark,” Fahnestock said. “It would have been great, but I wouldn’t have been it it next year.”
It wasn’t a decision Fahnestock made lightly. After being with the program for over 25 years, watching his four children throughout high school – oldest daughter Abby and three sons, Owen, Charlie, and Will – coaching was something that he “just kind of fell in love with,” he said.
But after a 3-1 loss to Althoff to end the baseball season, Fahnestock remembers a long walk down the left-field line to give what would be his last postgame speech.
“I knew it in my heart at that moment,” he said. “It was so hard to stay focused. I was very emotional. I knew it, but in my mind I was still processing.”
Now he plans to focus on what’s most important to him, his family.
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