For six consecutive seasons, the women’s tennis team has taken down Holy Cross in a postseason play-in game. But last Thursday’s contest saw the Crusaders take down the Leopards 4-3, capping off a rollercoaster season marked by a head coaching vacancy.
After Ralph Van Ormer left as head coach in November, taking a coaching job at Division III Muhlenberg College and citing financial reasons for his departure, Lafayette College hired Mike Mucci in December, only for him to resign weeks into his tenure to take a job at Portland State University. Both the men’s and women’s teams remained without a full-time head coach for their spring season.
“It just feels a little more unserious,” sophomore Marie Sofia Romaniello said. “It doesn’t feel like a true Division I team sometimes.”
“This season has been so disorganized, no actual coach taking care of us,” senior Alyssa Perdomo said, referring to the season as a “sh-tshow.”
The college announced Thursday that it hired Robert LeBuhn ’88 as the head coach of both the men’s and women’s teams, the alum’s first Division I coaching job. LeBuhn most recently coached at the high school level and in Division III with University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh from 2020-21.
“I am looking forward to the challenge of returning the teams to perennial contenders in the Patriot League,” LeBuhn said in an athletics press release.
Prior to LeBuhn’s arrival following the end of the season, Jason Toedter joined the team as interim head coach in January, and the college brought on Ireland Amato as an assistant coach in February. As time went on, Toedter began working more with the men’s team, and Amato worked more with the women’s squad.
“Jason maybe didn’t match our vibe as much as Ireland did,” freshman Sophia Bald said. “When Coach Jason was coaching us, he didn’t really communicate very well with us, so that was an issue.”
Toedter and Amato did not respond to requests for comment.
“They have their own lives, they have their own jobs outside of Lafayette and they still made the time, just like a head coach that only has this job to focus on,” junior Hanna Ganchi said of the two coaches. “The amount of hours they put in, the amount of time and effort that they put in, was great.”
Multiple players noted that it felt like there was a lack of structure in practice at times, which bled over into their on-court performance.
“In the absence of a permanent head coach, we worked hard to ensure our student-athletes had everything they needed—from quality instruction and practice facilities to transportation and meals,” athletic director Sherryta Freeman wrote in an email.
The postseason matchup began in favor of Holy Cross, as the Crusaders secured the doubles point, winning two of three doubles matches.
“I think we were all just in a big state of shock,” Romaniello said, with her and freshman Sophia Pacheco losing their match 6-2. “There’s just still so much lack of structure at practice and stuff that no one felt super confident going into the match.”
Ganchi and Perdomo won their match 6-4, but senior Ally Waldman and freshman Sophia Bald lost their match, giving up an early 4-0 lead and losing 6-4.
“Definitely not my ideal first year,” Bald said, adding that it was the “little things” and “deuce points” that contributed to the momentum shift.
The Leopards clawed back in singles play, with Perdomo, Romaniello and Pacheco the first finishers, all tallying victories. However, the final three singles matches all went in favor of Holy Cross, ending the match with a 4-3 victory.
Carly Riepenhoff, a student-athlete support staffer, has worked with the team without a full-time coach. As the team has navigated through an up-and-down season, the success of that support from athletics has been mixed.
“She was in constant contact with me this entire season,” Ganchi said of Riepenhoff, mentioning equipment, transportation, snacks and other quality-of-life improvements the team previously did not have. “She was constantly asking, like, ‘what else can I do? What else can I get you guys? What else do you need?’”
Riepenhoff could not be reached for comment.
“I really don’t feel supported at all because there’s just been so many problems,” Perdomo said. “All of that could’ve been solved if they gave our old coach a little more money for him to stay, but instead our whole season just turned into a pile of sh-t.”
The season’s end and LeBuhn’s hire mark the end of a chapter in a difficult year for the team.
“We understand that it has been an uncertain time for our student-athletes, but we’re excited about the future of Lafayette tennis,” Freeman wrote in an email.