Blue Hens have another coaching vacancy as softball's Seneca is fired

NEWARK – The University of Delaware is in the market for a coach.

Again.

This time it’s in softball, where John Seneca has been “relieved of his duties” after three-plus seasons, according to a UD press release Tuesday.

No reasons were given for the ouster of Seneca, 54, although Delaware's continued struggles to field a championship contender likely played a role. Seneca couldn't be reached for comment.

Seneca was Delaware’s coach for three full seasons, plus the last 17 games of 2015 after he was elevated from his associate head coach position when Jamie Wohlbach was fired April 13. Seneca was hired full-time to the position 2½ months later by then-athletic director Eric Ziady. Wohlbach is now the coach at East Stroudsburg.

Delaware went 81-89 overall and 28-41 in the Colonial Athletic Association under Seneca. He'd been a highly successful high school and amateur coach in the Lehigh Valley but hadn't coached at the collegiate level before joining Wohlbach at Delaware in 2012.

Softball will be the 11th of Delaware’s 21 varsity sports to undergo a coaching change since Chrissi Rawak became UD athletic director in May of 2016, following football, men’s golf, men’s lacrosse, women’s basketball, women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s swimming and men’s and women’s tennis. Ousted volleyball coach Bonnie Kenny has filed a lawsuit charging UD with discrimination in her ouster.

Rawak also hired a new men’s basketball coach, Martin Ingelsby, through the previous coach, Monte Ross, had been let go before her hiring.

Delaware recently announced the hiring of Pablo Marmolejo as men’s and women’s swim coach but has not yet replaced long-time women’s tennis coach Laura Travis.

In softball, Delaware, unable to land the necessary pitching, has never finished higher than third place in the Colonial Athletic Association in 17 seasons. That lone third-place finish was in 2003. Delaware has finished fourth on five occasions, the last in 2013, and that year's 12-9 league record is the only above .500 mark in the past 14 years.

Delaware went 18-31 overall and 8-13 in the CAA in 2018, finished tied for fifth and didn’t make the conference tournament. Hofstra and James Madison have been the league’s dominant programs, with both reaching the NCAA Tournament four of the last six seasons, including 2018.  

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @kevintresolini.