After finishing out its season ranked fourth in the Ivy League, the Dartmouth softball program has added one last touch to its new Varsity status. Wednesday afternoon, Athletic Director Dick Jaeger announced the hiring of Steffany Bender as the new head coach, replacing Hank Tenney. Bender will begin her duties July 1.
"This is a great opportunity for Dartmouth and for our softball team," Jaeger said. "Steffany is a dynamic person who comes from a first-rate program and has a good coaching experience. Having graduated from an Ivy League school, she understands the challenge of recruiting and is ready to tackle that head-on. We are excited to have Steffany on board."
Bender comes to the Hanover plain from Boston, where she has been working as an assistant coach for the Boston College softball program. She is a 1990 graduate of Princeton, and was a standout in the powerful Tiger program. Bender has been working for the Eagles ever since.
"We are all really looking forward to having Steffany as our new coach.She will be bringing five years of Division 1 college coaching experience with her which I think will prove to be invaluable," Christina Maybaum '98 said.
As a four-year letter winner at Princeton, Bender was a member of three Ivy League championship teams and captained the Tigers her senior year. She was a two time All-Ivy League outfielder, and also earned regional All-America honors in 1990. In addition to her exploits on the field, Bender was also named third team GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-American as a senior.
"We are all very excited that she was hired," said outfielder Julia Doster '97.
"She is very qualified, and will bring a lot to our team. She played four years at Princeton and has had great coaching experience," Doester said. "Most importantly, she's very enthusiastic and very personable."
"I'm thrilled to be a part of Dartmouth College athletics," Bender said. "I'm looking forward to the challenges of taking on the softball program and working to make Dartmouth a strong and competitive Ivy League softball team."
Bender comes to the Dartmouth softball program as it makes the transition to being a funded varsity program.
In its first varsity season , the Big Green women went 11-31 overall and 4-8 in the Ivy League. The 4-8 conference record left Dartmouth tied for fourth place with Brown.
"The College did a terrific job with the search process," third-baseman Lauren McQuade '97 said. "We strongly believe that Coach Bender and Dartmouth will be a great match."
"We cannot thank Hank enough, however. He stood by the team and put Dartmouth softball in a position to gain varsity status," McQuade said. "Without him, we would not be in this exciting situation that we are intoday."
