Assistant Coaches Stephanie Sanders and Jeff Tylka

ASSISTANT COACHES STEPHANIE SANDERS

Assistant Coach First Season Michigan State ’15

Penn State softball head coach Clarisa Crowell added Stephanie Sanders to her staff as an assistant coach in August 2020. Sanders joins Crowell from Miami (Ohio) where she was in the same capacity.

Sanders spent two seasons (2019-20) as an assistant at Miami under Crowell in charging of coaching the outfielders and the hitters.

In a shortened 2020 season, Miami was picked to finish first in the regular season and to win the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament.

Sanders helped Miami capture its first MAC regular season championship in program history with a 35-16 overall record and 16-4 mark in conference play. The 16 conference wins tied the most MAC wins in Miami history. The RedHawks also had the highest conference win percentage in program history while putting together the longest conference win streak, winning 10-straight MAC games en route to the crown.

Prior to Miami, Sanders spent two seasons at Villanova as an assistant coach. She coached the outfielders and assisted with hitting. Sanders helped lead the Wildcats to an overall record of 62-44-2 and a conference record of 23-16 in her two-year stint. She spent one season after graduation as the outfield and hitting coach at Saginaw Valley State, and assisted with camps, clinics, strength and conditioning, and recruiting.

As a student-athlete, Sanders was a four-year letterwinner at fellow Big Ten school Michigan State. She appeared in 177 career games, primarily as a utility player, mostly playing outfield. During her senior season in 2015, Sanders posted a .288 batting average, scored 25 runs, totaled 44 hits with 32 RBI and had 16 extra-base hits with seven doubles and nine home runs, all career highs. Her nine home runs tied for the 11th-most in a single season at Michigan State and she ranked second for the Spartans in multi-hit games (15) and multi-RBI games (8).

Sanders, a Lima, Ohio native, earned a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Michigan State in 2015.

JEFF TYLKA

Assistant Coach First Season Knox ’01 St. Mary’s ’04

Penn State softball head coach Clarisa Crowell completed her staff with the hiring of Jeff Tylka as an assistant coach in August 2020. Tylka will serve primarily as the hitting coach for the Nittany Lions.

Tylka comes to Happy Valley most recently from Elite Baseball/Softball Training in Chicago, Illinois, where he was the director of fastpitch and a hitting instructor. Tylka oversaw numerous hitting classes and training seminars while he also tested and wrote movement programs for all softball players. He worked with softball Olympians, MLB players, Division I athletes and youth players to help develop their swings and help them use the best swing for their movement capabilities. Tylka learned from top instructors Justin Stone and Travis Kerber. Stone is currently the Director of Hitting for the Chicago Cubs. Prior to working at Elite, Tylka was the head softball coach at Loyola University in Chicago (LUC) from 2015-19. Tylka holds the third-highest win mark among LUC head coaches with 111 wins under his belt. He instituted multiple offensive concepts and changes in his five seasons at the helm that led the Ramblers to the top batting average in program history during the 2019 season (.303). During the 2019 season, the Ramblers also established single-season team records for runs (239), hits (403) and RBI (214) while reaching the 25-win benchmark for the second time in the last three seasons. Tylka guided Allyson Ivey to Loyola single-season records for RBI (54) and batting average (.460, 63-for-137) while the batting average was also a Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) record. Ivey earned First Team All-MVC honors and First Team NFCA All-Midwest Region accolades, to be only Loyola’s second-ever first team all-district winner. Additionally, Shannon McGee and Jessica Shields earned second team and third team NFCA All-Midwest honors, respectively, to create a school record amount of all-region players.

In 2018, Tylka coached the Ramblers to 23 victories, including a 8-4 win at Notre Dame, the program’s first decision over a Power 5 conference opponent since 2016. He helped McGee to first team All-MVC accolades as she batted a team-best .372 while only striking out seven times all season.

In 2017, Tylka steered his squad to its most successful season in four years, earning a berth in the conference tournament for the first time since 2014. The young Ramblers team, one of the youngest in the nation, won 27 games, the program’s most since 2013, including a blazing 14-0 start, the best in program history and a program record for most consecutive victories. The 2016 LUC team improved in the win column and hit .275 as a team. Tylka mentored then-junior Erica Nagel to a Loyola and MVC record by hitting .453 with 72 hits. Tylka coached then-freshman Brooke Wyderski to lead the team in three triple-crown categories. She set Loyola freshman records in home runs (12) and RBI (37) while hitting at a .302 clip. Ashley Rogers also became the first LUC student-athlete to earn an Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award, presented to one senior from each of the state’s four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities for excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities.

Before being named the softball skipper, Tylka spent three seasons as an assistant coach at Loyola, primarily working with the hitters. The Ramblers had 11 players earn all-conference honors during his tenure and the offense set a school record with 44 home runs in 2013. In 2014, the Ramblers concluded their first season in the MVC and advanced to the title game of the conference championship. Tylka coached the offensive to single-season school records with 193 RBI and 67 doubles.

Four Loyola players recorded All-Horizon League honors in 2013. Then-senior Brooke Andersen became the first player in school history to earn first team all-conference accolades for four-straight years as Tylka mentored the lefty swinger to close out her career as the school’s all-time lead in atbats (637), hits (215) and runs (116), and her .338 career batting average ranks among the top five.

Under Tylka’s eight-year tutelage at Loyola, seven players earned All-Region status and 22 were named NFCA Scholar-Athletes for having a GPA of 3.50 or higher, including a program 10 in the 2012-13 academic year. Additionally, 12 student-athletes recorded all-conference honors. Tylka graduated with a degree in economics from Knox College in 2001 and a masters in education from St. Mary’s University in Minnesota in 2004. Tylka was a three-sport athlete at Knox College, playing baseball, football and basketball. Tylka and his wife, Amanda, have two sons, Colton and Jace.