Lady Flames Head Coach Bethany Weldy (right) gives instructions to team members during a drill on the Liberty Lacrosse Fields last Thursday night. (Photos by Ted Allen)
Women’s ultimate Head Coach Weldy builds on faith-based foundation, welcomes new players to ‘family’
11/21/2023 5:13:00 PM | Women's Ultimate
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With assistance from former co-captain Mikayla DiSarle, Bethany Weldy replaces Jonathan Mast, who took the reins of the second-year program in 2014 and coached for the past seven seasons alongside his wife, Ashley.
Former Liberty University women's ultimate team captain Bethany (Fowle) Weldy has spent the fall semester transitioning into her new role as head coach, succeeding Jonathan Mast ('12), who guided the Lady Flames for the past 10 seasons.
Mast has taken on new role as associate director for special projects and events for LU Serve this semester. With life, work, and family responsibilities accumulating, he and his wife, Assistant Coach Ashley (Condon) Mast ('16), felt the time was right to pass the baton to Weldy, who was one of their most trusted captains during a playing career that spanned from 2016-21.
Weldy offers pointers to freshman Maddie Smith (left) as senior Alexa Tice looks on.
"She was a volunteer assistant for a while and it was the recommendation of Jonathan Mast that she take over the team," said Angie Witt, who serves as Club Sports' senior women's administrator. "During the interview process, I saw her heart for the girls and her passion to Train Champions for Christ."
After playing on the men's ultimate team from its inaugural 2011-12 season, Mast served as an assistant under founding Head Coach Jason Jarrett for the women's squad in 2013 before taking the helm the following season. From the start, he placed a greater emphasis on developing life skills in his players and building relationships within the team than on wins and losses.
"When Jonathan took over, the women's team had more of a focus and foundation on building not only individual players' skills, but also an identity for the team on and off the field, and I want to continue to develop that," Weldy said.
While mentoring her and casting his vision for the program, Mast trained Weldy in the finer points of managing a team from technical and tactical standpoints and taught her the administrative side of coaching.
"He has been kind of throwing her into the fire and telling her to run with it and coach the team as she sees fit," Witt said in mid-October.
Mikayla DiSarle ('20, '22), who played for the Lady Flames from 2017-22, succeeds Ashley (Condon) Mast as assistant coach, a title that she held for the past seven seasons.
"We feel very confident that Bethany and Mikayla will be able to take the reins as they are very well familiar with the team," Jonathan Mast said. "They have competed at a high level as well and are very much bought into the purpose for the existence of the team."
He said Weldy has the same character-based coaching philosophy that he has tried to instill into the team for the past decade.
"I would not be stepping down if I didn't feel that the main purpose of the team that we've had for a long time would not be carried on," Mast said. "We see it as a ministry of teaching character and life lessons through sports and making the team a community, a home away from home, and a family."
Weldy and Assistant Coach Mikayla DiSarle ('21, right) were Lady Flames co-captains.
Weldy served as captain alongside DiSarle for a couple of seasons and said that they complement one another as coaches as well as they did as players. DiSarle, who earned her MBA in 2022, currently serves as an associate director on Liberty's CARE & Support staff. Weldy, who earned her B.S. in Family and Child Development, works for HumanKind in Lynchburg.
"We played different positions — she was a handler and I was a cutter — so we are able to see the game from different points of view and bring both perspectives to coaching," said Weldy, who also gains insight from her husband, former Flames player Caleb Weldy ('21), now a volunteer assistant for the men's team. "Through my experience in playing and in coaching, I have started to learn how to analyze players and help them improve their fundamentals, and to adjust while the game is going on."
She has worked to develop strong rapport with each member of the team and to learn their styles and strengths to know how best to utilize them in games.
"I like that ultimate is a very team-oriented sport," Weldy said. "Especially in tournaments, you have to have depth on the team because everyone will get tired, so everyone needs to be reliable. I've been trying to help the new people learn as quickly as they can, and they have been picking it up."
Liberty opened its season at an Oct. 7-8 tournament hosted by the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. There, the Lady Flames lost to the host Tribe's A team, 11-4, and to a team from VCU, 7-3, before defeating William & Mary's B team, 8-4, and falling flat against JMU, 13-1, in the final round of pool play. Liberty met the Dukes again in the first round of the playoffs and lost, 15-3, before defeating the Tribe's B team for a second time.
Lady Flames junior Alyssa Moyer makes a catch during last Thursday night's practice.
Of the 28 players on the Lady Flames' current roster, only nine are returnees from last season. They are led by junior captains Taylor Zeigler and Abby Lasko, who was one of the team's statistical leaders in the tournament at William & Mary along with senior Grace Wilson and sophomore Dani Rodenwald.
Over Homecoming Weekend, the Lady Flames challenged an alumnae team, who showed their experience by winning decisively despite being outnumbered.
"The current players had moments of brilliance and moments of greatness and really good efforts throughout the whole game," Weldy said.
Keeping team traditions in place while building new offensive and defensive strategies with insight from DiSarle, Weldy believes the team has the makings of a contender for the Virginia Conference title this spring.
"I have been looking at the past to learn from it, and I am very optimistic about the future," she said.
By Ted Allen/Staff WriterDani Rodenwald (right) passes around defensive coverage applied by fellow Lady Flames sophomore Marina Abila (left) during practice.
