Eckerd College athletic director Bob Fortosis promised to make changes when he took over in July, to improve the Tritons reputation in the Sunshine State Conference.
He started to make good on that promise this week when he accepted the resignation of volleyball coach A.J. Joseph and fired cross country coach Ray Wunderlich.
Joseph recently completed his second season as volleyball coach after spending time as the men's club team coach.
In two years, Joseph was 32-34 overall, but only 7-21 in conference play. This season, the Tritons finished sixth in the eight-team conference.
"A.J. has a chance to get his master's degree at Georgia State and we wish him nothing but the best," Fortosis said.
"We're going to cast a wide net in our search for a new coach. There is probably nothing that will happen over the dead period of the holidays, but by January we should start to know something."
The Eckerd women's cross country team fell short of expectations this season. The team, with five new runners, finished fourth of six teams at the conference meet.
Fortosis said he expects that job to be filled by early next year as well. Eckerd does not field a men's team.
Fortosis took over for interim athletic director George Meese on July 1. Prior to that, Jim Harley was the athletic director for 40 years. Fortosis came to Eckerd from Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich.
In the following years, Fortosis said Eckerd hopes to build a new basketball and student athletic center as well as improve the soccer fields.
While he would not specify which programs, Fortosis did say he expects more coaching changes.
CRUMBLEY REACHES MILESTONE: St.Petersburg College coach Earnest Crumbley earned his 100th victory at the school on Nov.28 with a 92-84 win over Brevard Community College at the team's annual Thanksgiving Shootout. Since then, Crumbley has improved to 102 wins, including an 80-67 win over Florida Community College on Dec.6.
"A hundred wins is nice, and I appreciate all of those who helped us reach it," said Crumbley, who is in his sixth season as head coach.
"But our bigger goal is to succeed academically this first semester, come back and win the Suncoast Conference, then go on to the state tournament and win that and so we can get to the national tournament and let our players compete in that environment."
The Titans were 10-2 heading into Saturday's game against Broward Community College. On Dec. 19, SPC plays at Warner Southern before taking two weeks off for the Christmas break.
Crumbley, whose son, Kory, is a sophomore guard, is a St.Petersburg native and was a basketball standout at Boca Ciega. He was an assistant coach at SPC from 1992-1997 before taking over as head coach for the 1998-99 season.
The Titans won the school's first-ever state championship under Crumbley in 2001-02.
ECKERD TENNIS RANKED: The Eckerd women's team is 10th in the NCAA Division II Southeast regional poll.
Rachael Sanchez is ranked 10th in the poll as a single's player.
The conference is well represented in the poll. Lynn University is ranked first, Barry is second, Rollins is third, Florida Southern is fifth and Tampa is tied with Eckerd at 10th.
SLOW BEGINNING: The Eckerd women's basketball team surely wanted to get off to a better start than this.
The Tritons were 2-5 after a Dec.6 loss to Georgia College. The Tritons have lost four straight.
Jen Ritter leads the team with 12.4 points per game. Meredith Cook is averaging 10.0 points and a team high 7.0 rebounds. KC Gavin has 9.1 points per game.
AROUND THE SSC: Lynn University won the NCAA Division II men's soccer national championship on Dec.7 with a 2-1 win over Chico (Calif.) State. It is the first men's soccer national championship for the school, and the sixth overall for the athletic department. Sunshine State Conference teams have now won 56 national championships. ... The University of Tampa lost in four games to Cal State-San Bernardino on Dec. 4 to end its quest for a national championship. North Alabama won the title, defeating Concordia-St. Paul in the championship match.
