Monday, August 23, 2010

Freedom graduate gets the Muhlenberg softball job

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Over the years the Lehigh Valley has been known for producing quality college softball players. And now it is rapidly becoming known for producing college coaches.

The latest is Freedom High graduate Marisa DeStasio, who was named head coach at Muhlenberg College on Monday.

DeStasio joins Jamie Wohlbach (Delaware), Terri Adams (Saint Joseph's) and Eileen Schmidt (Virginia) as former area players now running their own college programs. And, I am sure I am missing a few more.

DeStasio is replacing Roni Rivera, who left Muhlenberg to replace Wohlbach at Iona.

DeStasio played her college ball at the University of Binghamton where she was a four-year starter and an all-America East Conference second team choice as a utility player in 2003. She is the Bearcats' all-time leader with 34 sacrifice hits and ranks in the top five in school history in steals, runs, games played, hits, and at-bats.

After graduating from Binghamton in 2005, she earned a master's degree in athletic coaching from West Virginia in 2008. She coached at MacMurray College in Illinois in 2006. She spent the last three seasons as an assistant at Lafayette College where the Leopards became much more respectable in Patriot League play.

With DeStasio on the staff, Lafayette posted a school-record 27 wins in 2008 and made its first two appearances in the Patriot League tournament in 2008 and 2009.

Muhlenberg went 14-19 in an injury-plagued season under Rivera last spring.

Marisa's brother, Greg, by the way is one of the area's top boys basketball scorekeepers, taking great care of the Liberty High program every winter. He also maintains an excellent web site for Hurricanes hoops.

http://freeteams.net/LibertyHurricanesBasketball/

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

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