On Friday, Amy Hough, the longtime head coach for the Elizabethtown College Blue Jays women’s soccer team, announced her departure from the program. Hough expressed that the reasoning for her stepping down from the role was centered on her family.
“I’ve always shared with the student-athletes within my program that it is important to make decisions from your priorities, and family should always be first,” Hough said to the Etown Athletics team.
This past fall. Hough finished her tenth season as the Blue Jays head coach. This season she led the team to a 7-5-6 record and clinched a spot in the Landmark Conference playoffs.
The Blue Jays finished their final three games of the regular season with a record of 2-0-1 before ultimately losing to Susquehanna University on penalty kicks after both teams were shut out through the first 120 minutes of play.
Throughout her career at Etown, Hough finished with a 66-65-23 record with an impressive 34-25-10 record in the Landmark Conference. In her ten seasons, Hough led the Blue Jays to the Landmark playoffs five times, including taking home the runner up spot in the conference in 2021. This eventually led to an upset with Susquehanna in the semifinals on penalties and eventually losing to the champions Scranton 2-0.
Etown’s Director of Athletics Chris Morgan expressed his feelings about Hough’s dedication to the program.
“For the past ten years, Coach Hough has poured her heart, passion, and purpose into our women’s soccer program. The impact she has made on our student-athletes, both on and off the field, will be felt for years to come. We are deeply grateful for her service and leadership to our student-athletes, the Athletic Department, and the College,” he said.
Hough has coached 29 all-conference players for Etown, including senior forward Skylar Mumford, senior midfielder Jenna Hoffman, senior defender Olivia Herbert and sophomore goalkeeper Ella Smith. Etown also produced the Offensive Player of the Year, Lydia Lawson, for three consecutive years under Hough from 2017-2019. Lawson was also nominated as an All-American in 2019.
“For ten seasons, I have had the most amazing teams of student-athletes that have worn the Etown jersey with pride and made me so proud to be their coach. I have a strong belief that the future is so bright for this program, and I look forward to being their biggest fan as they create it,” Hough said.
Hough leaves the program along with three of the four All-Conference award winners, with Smith being the only returning recipients to the Blue Jay squad in 2026.
The 2019 Landmark Coach of the Year led the Blue Jays to a 11-5-1 record, the team’s best since 2014. This past season, the Blue Jays had put together a winning record for the first time since the 2019 season, cementing a playoff spot as the number four seed in the conference.
Assistant coaches Jamie Kuntz and Jessica Weinolt still remain as assistants for the Blue Jays team and have been recognized by Hough as coaches “who bought into [her] vision and helped [her] and the team get better every day.”
Etown is currently searching for the next head coach for the 2026 season. This will be the second time this academic year that the Blue Jays will be searching for a new head coaching position as the baseball team announced that there was a vacancy for a head coach in late 2025.
