Softball is searching for a new head coach.

Head coach James DeFeo will not return to GW for softball’s upcoming season as his contract was not renewed, the athletic department announced in a release Tuesday. The departure comes less than two years after he took the helm of the program.

A national search for a new head coach will begin immediately, according to the release.

DeFeo leaves GW with a 61–45 record in two seasons. Last season, the team won 33 games – a single-season program record – and qualified for the Atlantic 10 Championship as the No. 6 seed for the first time since 2016.

The Colonials maintained a program-record .328 batting average, beating their .302 mark from last season. The team also set program records in hits, home runs and stolen bases this season.

In 2017, the team captured its first winning conference record since 2013 under DeFeo’s first-year leadership and averaged hitting above .300 for the first time in program history.

The new hire will be the program’s seventh head coach in fifteen years.

DeFeo was named head coach when Stacey Schramm resigned after her sixth season with the team. Schramm was the longest-tenured coach in the program’s history.

The Colonials will return fourteen players from last year’s roster, including junior utility player Jenna Cone, sophomore infielder Alessandra Ponce and sophomore utility player Sierra Lange. Four rookies are also committed to join the roster for 2019.