The University of Virginia athletics program has been busy this month welcoming in two new head coaches.
On June 10, Craig Littlepage, UVA Athletic Director, welcomed Joanna Hardin as the new head coach of the UVA softball team.
Hardin was the head coach at McNeese State for the past two seasons and served as an assistant coach there two years prior.
As a head coach at McNeese, she led the team to a 79-34 record, which included a Southland Conference championship and an NCAA Regional appearance in 2016.
The UVA softball team struggled last season with an 18-33 overall record and a 7-14 record in the ACC. The Hoos did not qualify for the ACC tournament. Hardin will take over for Blake Miller, who went 42-116 in three seasons as the team’s head coach.
The second UVA head coaching hire will replace the winningest coach in ACC and UVA men’s lacrosse history.
On June 21, Littlepage once again announced an addition to the Virginia athletics program, by hiring Lars Tiffany. Tiffany will be replacing Dom Starsia, who served as the UVA men’s lacrosse coach for 24 seasons.
As a 1990 Brown graduate, Tiffany himself played as a starter on defense under Starsia’s administration.
Since then, Tiffany served the past 10 seasons as the head coach at Brown where he led the Bears to a 116-39 overall record.
In 2016, Tiffany finished with a 16-3 record and his team led the nation in scoring, averaging 16.32 points per game. He also led the Bears to Championship Weekend this past season.
He was named New England Coach of the Year in 2008, 2009, 2015 and 2016 and received Ivy League Coach of the Year in both 2015 and 2016.
Starsia’s contract expires in January 2017 and Tiffany will step in as his replacement. The UVA men’s lacrosse program failed to make it to the ACC tournament for the past three years and did not make the NCAA tournament in both 2013 and 2016.
Both coaches will join the UVA community in hopes to better the softball and men’s lacrosse programs. Both Hardin and Tiffany will begin their first seasons with UVA next spring.
