By Jim Fryar

jfryar@joplinglobe.com

The addition of two varsity sports to the Ozark Christian College athletic program will require additional coaching help.

School officials began filling those vacancies this week with the appointment of Cassie Tritthart as women’s soccer coach and Darrell Doss as baseball coach.

The Ambassadors will field their first women’s soccer team this fall. The baseball program will be renewed, after a 15-year interval, beginning in the spring of the 2007-08 academic year.

“We thought about softball,” said Chris Lahm, OCC athletic director. “But the interest level for prospective students seemed to be higher in women’s soccer.

“We’ve got a lot of interest in the baseball program right now. We have kids on campus who were all-state baseball players, who were recruited by other colleges,” Lahm said. “We also have a couple of kids who are going to be transferring in from other programs. That’s (baseball) been a big interest.”

Doss coaches women’s basketball and volleyball for the Ambassadors. He will give up his job coaching volleyball in order to take over the baseball program, Lahm said.

School officials are searching for someone to take over the volleyball program. An announcement on that position could be made as early as next week, Lahm said.

Tritthart played on the boys soccer team at Miami, Okla., and later played a year at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Westminster and is pursuing a master’s.

Tritthart serves as a youth minister in Fredonia, Kan. She will move to Joplin to coach soccer and also will seek full-time employment, Lahm said.

Doss played baseball in Joplin and at OCC before the sport was dropped.

OCC also offers men’s soccer, another fall sport, and men’s basketball.