WARRENTON — Travis Freeman is the new varsity football coach, and Robert Hoepfl has been hired as athletic director, as Warrenton High School athletics moves forward into another school year.

Freeman and Hoepfl replace Ian O’Brien, who departed Warrenton to become athletic director at Lakeridge High School.

O’Brien was both varsity football coach and A.D. at Warrenton, leaving principal Rod Heyen with a couple key spots to fill.

“There’s kind of a snowball effect and a chain reaction,” Heyen said. “It’s been a real challenging summer for hiring, but we’re real excited about some of the hires we’ve made.”

Freeman, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Astoria Middle School, played football at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., after graduating from Royal High School in Royal City, Wash.

He becomes just the third Warrenton football coach in the last 41 years.

John Mattila won 15 league championships and had a career record of 252 wins, 129 losses from 1974 to 2011, and O’Brien was 15-14 in his three years, 2012-14.

Freeman served as an assistant coach under O’Brien, while Heyen said two of Freeman’s assistants will be Mike Larsen and Jake Mullins, who were both assistants last season.

“We’re real excited — Travis has been a great influence on our kids,” Heyen said. “This is his first head coaching gig, but he has good football pedigree. He’s been around the game and played a little bit.”

Meanwhile, Hoepfl was new to the Warrenton district last year, “and is real excited about the position,” Heyen said of Hoepfl, who is currently in Pennsylvania. “He was an assistant coach in several sports last year, so he has a taste of a little bit of everything. He has a good background, and he’s great with kids.”

Hoepfl teaches U.S. history and global studies at Warrenton High School, and last year served as an assistant coach in football, girls basketball and baseball.

He attended Junction City High School, where he played football, basketball and baseball. He caught two touchdown passes in a 20-0 state playoff win over Astoria in 2004.

Hoepfl received a bachelor’s degree in history from Northwest Christian College in Eugene, where he played basketball for the Beacons.