Roberto Mazza’s success with the Arkansas-Pine Bluff women’s soccer team has led to a new opportunity at Louisiana-Monroe.
ULM hired Mazza as its new head coach earlier this week, a month after he guided the Lady Lions to their second SWAC championship and NCAA tournament appearance in three years.
“UAPB has really supported me, and I can’t thank Chancellor (Lawrence A.) Davis (Jr.) and the athletic staff enough for giving me the opportunity to do what I wanted to do to build the program up,” Mazza said Friday. “I’m pleased to leave the program a better place than it was when I came.”
Mazza took over the Lady Lions in 2007 after a year as an assistant at Mississippi Valley State. He led UAPB to its first SWAC tournament appearance in 2008, its first conference title in 2009 and first of two straight SWAC Western Division titles last year. UAPB also hosted the conference tournament last year, but was upset by Valley in the semifinals.
This year, the Lady Lions (16-5-1, 9-0 SWAC) took two games from the Devilettes, beating them 1-0 in the regular season and 3-0 in the SWAC title game in Alexandria, La., to make the NCAA tournament. Oklahoma State eliminated UAPB 9-1 in the NCAA first round.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Mazza’s players earned many individual awards, including a historic sweep of the player of the year honors in the SWAC this season. Sylvia Fuentes (offensive), Erika Forbes (defensive) and Meaghan Storie (freshman) made UAPB the first school to win all three honors in the same year.
The coach said it was tough to leave a talented pool of players behind — Fuentes and Forbes are acutally seniors — but added it was time to move on to a different challenge.
“ULM is sort of a mirror image to what Arkansas-Pine Bluff was,” Mazza said. “They haven’t been very successful in the last three, four or five years. They just need a remake. That’s something I’ve done here.”
The Warhawks were 5-14-1 this season, going 0-11 in Sun Belt Conference play to close out the schedule.
It’s not known what, if any, timeline UAPB has for naming Mazza’s replacement. The school did not publicly announce Mazza’s departure.
UAPB athletic director Lonza Hardy Jr. could not be reached for comment.