Standing at third base in the MAAC championship, Alyssa Grupp never expected to coach for her alma mater, let alone receive a promotion to head assistant coach for Marist softball.
At the end of Grupp’s senior season in 2024, with no years left of eligibility, she had to decide “What’s next?” After speaking with her former head coach, Joe Ausanio, she decided to work as a graduate assistant for her former team while pursuing a master’s degree in marketing communication.
Marist’s former lead assistant and pitching coach, Kristen Erb, won two MAAC Championships in four seasons and helped to produce two MAAC Pitchers of the Year and the 2025 MAAC Student-Athlete of the Year. After a historic 48-9-1 season, however, she moved on to the head coaching role at California University of Pennsylvania. This left a hole in the coaching staff.
“It wasn’t on the forefront of my mind,” said Grupp. “I’ll wait it out, get my master’s […] then the position became open. I didn’t apply for a while because I didn’t know if [Ausiano] would think I was ready.”
The moment Erb left, Grupp immediately filled the empty role. She handled the behind-the-scenes work of running a team off the field. These included managing the recruiting and telephone call logs, promptly providing credit card information and ensuring that unofficial visits were conducted correctly.
On the field, she handled spray charts, hashed out hitting approaches before players’ at-bats and developed the team’s young infield.
Ausanio noticed her initiative when called upon. With the search for a new assistant not panning out, he asked Grupp to hand in her application.
“She did a really good job last year. When Kristen left, she really stepped up and did a lot of the stuff Kristen did. I’m like, ‘This is silly, I should just hire you.’ When that option became available, I got the okay to do it, and she accepted,” said Ausanio.
Grupp now enters her sixth season with the program. The first four encompassed her playing days, posting a .335 career batting average, an All-MAAC First Team selection in 2024 and a MAAC championship in 2023. Her elite work ethic, dedication and commitment to bettering herself as a player and the program as a coach earned respect from the players.
“I’m definitely happy for her, but I’m also happy for the team,” said graduate infielder Haley Ahr. “She really cares about her job and is able to do a lot more. She has a lot of ideas.”
Grupp introduced a new method of developing players: filming players’ swings. She believed Marist lacked analytics, a prominent idea in baseball and softball culture today.
Before last season, the team only conducted film review on opposing teams. Ausanio never thought of incorporating it with his own roster, but Grupp did. She proposed the idea, and Ausiano let her run with it.
The result: the best season in MAAC history.
“We take hundreds of swings a day. Being able to look back and see myself progress, filming our swings every live [at-bat] helped develop my swing. I felt that I was in a good spot at the end of last season,” said senior outfielder Peyton Pusey.
Minutely tweaking Pusey’s swing to have her hands in a comfortable slot and loaded position resulted in the best season of her career. She finished with a .429 batting average, 1.123 OPS, 10 home runs and 87 hits, all career highs.
Career seasons reached far beyond Pusey – it became common amongst the 2025 team. Ahr improved her numbers from a 1.140 OPS, nine home runs, 51 RBIs, 70 hits and a .422 batting average in 2024 to a 1.319 OPS, 11 home runs, 59 RBIs, 90 hits and she led the NCAA with a .508 batting average in 2025.
“She knows how each of our swings are,” said Ahr. “We’ll break it down and tweak it. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, and we’ll go back to the drawing board. A lot of the time, one little tweak she caught on video has helped.”
As she’s established her memory and softball IQ with the players, Grupp understands every swing, allowing her to individualize every teaching moment with each player. Having already coached her former teammates, who have incredible athletic resumes, she shifted her focus to instilling her knowledge into a new freshman class.
In 2026, the Red Foxes will trot out eight new freshmen with big shoes to fill, succeeding players who recorded the best single-season performances and careers in MAAC softball history. These open spots include one in the outfield, two to three in the infield and two on the pitching staff.
Outside of hitting, Grupp’s main area of focus revolves around creating a sound infield. She will need to replace one of the most experienced defensive infields in the MAAC last season with a much younger group this year.
Ahr will start the season as the primary shortstop after manning the right side of the infield throughout the past three seasons. Sophomore infielder Sienna Kunze and senior utility player Isabella Manory will juggle time between catcher and the other positions on the field, leaving opportunities at first base, third base and second base for the freshmen.
The freshmen position players will play multiple positions, but they have a coach who knows the importance of this and how to do so. During her playing career, Grupp saw time at second base, third base and even left field.
“I think that’s the beauty of it,” said Grupp. “I can talk to them in that way. I played everywhere, and there’s a good chance you’re gonna have to play everywhere too.”
With the new class likely playing both the infield and outfield, Grupp can teach each player the proper defensive schemes and arm slot. For example, in the outfield, fielders require a vertical arm slot, but in the infield, they can throw from a lower angle.
This freshman class allows Grupp to coach through a team dynamic. Last season, 15 of the 19 players on the roster were her former teammates and some of her closest friends. That number decreased to just seven this season, forcing a different type of relationship between the players and Grupp.
“It stinks,” said Ahr.
Though the freshman class brings a new coaching perspective, one easier to coach critically, Grupp excelled at keeping her players locked in since her playing days.
“When we were playing together, I was not having a great day. She came up and said, ‘You need to fix yourself because your team is counting on you. People aren’t going to remember what you do on the field. They’re going to remember what kind of teammate you are.’ She checked me that day and I respected it. Ever since that point, I have respected her for doing the hard thing.”
Haley Ahr
In addition to the difficulties of coaching her friends, working over 1,000 miles away from her family and newborn nephew in Jacksonville, Florida, takes its toll. She wants to be present in her nephew’s life, but duty calls in Poughkeepsie. Her family, however, fully supports the decision.
Coming off the greatest season in the history of the conference, the team has a target on its back and enters this season with high expectations. With a different roster, Grupp and Ausanio enter their sixth season together in hopes of acquiring the new head assistant’s third ring.
Edited by Mike Duda and Ava Battinelli
Graphic by Isabel Cortese
Photo by Marist Athletics
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