That handoff went to longtime assistant Kristin Delahoussaye, someone who hopes to put her own “Coach House spice” on the tenets that made the Wildcats rise to the top of the Big Sky Conference under Amicone.

“I will never be Mary Kay Amicone and I don’t think she ever expects that of me either, but it’s my job to still build a legacy and the dynasty that she has built the foundation for,” Delahoussaye said. “So now I get to add onto that in my own way.”

Delahoussaye is now in her 13th season as a college softball coach, eighth at Weber State and first as head coach. She’d been WSU’s associate head coach since 2020 and had opportunities for jobs elsewhere. Though she’s not a Utah native or WSU alum, she wanted to wait for this job because, she says, the administration supports softball and all sports.

“There are some universities who do that well and some that don’t do that as well,” she said. “While there were other opportunities — and maybe I was ready at the time, but there were so many things I was still learning here from Coach Amicone, and from other coaches and administrators I felt had been really valuable to me getting to this point.

Greg Merrill, for WSU Athletics

“You’re always kind of sure that you’re ready, but kind of not sure if you’re ready. You don’t know until you actually do it. So we’ll find out how ready I am.”

Delahoussaye hopes her experience in the sport helps shape her success.

She grew up in Las Vegas playing baseball with brothers and cousins. But around 12 years old, when boys were starting to move up to 90-foot bases, a bunch of “softball girls” invited Delahoussaye to play flag football. She hesitated to play the “girly sport” of softball with them but found that it began to provide great friendships and memories.

“Since then, I’ve just played — eat, sleep, breath softball pretty much every day the rest of my life,” she said.

By her evaluation, Delahoussaye didn’t think she was that good at softball, but she turned one skill into a strength: defense.

Greg Merrill, for WSU Athletics

“You couldn’t get a ball by me. I made sure I got that down. Kind of like a ‘gotta win’ mentality,” she said.

She eventually learned how to hit a softball though, again, she claims she was never that good. But she finished her four-year career at BYU (2008-11) with 144 walks, still second all-time for the program — “up there with all the home-run hitters who got walked on purpose,” she quipped.

Those things epitomize one of Mary Kay’s Amicone-isms that Delahoussaye says will continue at Weber State: be good at what you’re good at.

Another way Delahoussaye hopes her experience helps is finding the “big fish in the small pond.” At 5-foot-4 and 120 pounds, she feels like she was similar to the kinds of players Weber State needs to find. Her summer teams would consistently get beat by younger, elite recruits. She knows WSU will never out-recruit legacy programs in power conferences but, like the Wildcats have done in years past, won’t need to in order to succeed.

“You always want the biggest fastest strongest kids, and that’s obviously what we’re looking to do every year. But at the same time, I’m recruiting the hearts to be the biggest, fastest and the strongest. All 23 of our athletes are stellar competitors. I would choose them again every single time. Like, they are so good at what they do.

Robert Casey, Weber State Athletics

“I don’t have to see them hit six home runs (when recruiting). I have to see them work at-bats, smash balls, and then come to find out they do hit six home runs because they are that good but somebody overlooked them because they weren’t on the right team, or they weren’t somewhere that they got looks, or they weren’t big enough, or they weren’t fast enough — whatever the scenario was. I think we have a roster full of power-five-level athletes that just got overlooked.”

Delahoussaye started coaching summer-ball teams while still playing at BYU, spent one year as an assistant at Utah Tech, then returned to BYU for four seasons before connecting with Amicone and making Weber State her new home. She came to find coaching was more enjoyable in some ways than playing.

“As much as I loved playing — and there’s nothing that’s the same as actually being a player — I think I actually love coaching more,” Delahoussaye said. “You take all the ups and downs that you had as a player and now I get to feel them for all 23 of them, which some days is like the greatest thing you’ve ever seen, but not all 23 of them have the best days. So then you get mellowed out by the couple that had a bad day.

“So to be able to be a part of all their adventures and all their journeys — we’re here to make them better people as much as better softball players. And so watching them learn and grow in the same way that I learned and grew, and getting them to not make the same mistakes I made, so that they’re more prepared for life after softball is huge.”

Along with the Amicone-isms — “control the controllables” and “there’s no bad weather, just bad clothes” among them — she tries to teach through analogies and storytelling, which she knows sometimes makes players roll their eyes but hopes the messages stick all the same.

“That’s the culture, and then it changes based on every team. Every year is different,” Delahoussaye said. “What we’re doing this year is probably going to be a little bit different than what we do next year, a little bit different than we do the year after.”

COACHING STAFF

Delahoussaye’s first staff includes Josee Haycock, former WSU pitcher Addie Jensen as pitching coach, and John Mortensen as a third assistant.

Haycock is a native of Draper who played two seasons at Salt Lake Community College, graduated from Utah Valley and has been a coach for the Utah Fastpitch Club’s 18U and 16U summer program.

“She’s passionate about the sport. She’s great at learning, picking up on stuff, and she gives us a different perspective as far as what the younger generation is doing … and keeps me grounded that way. She’s awesome with the girls,” Delahoussaye said.

Jensen, who graduated from Morgan High, pitched at SLCC and UVU before finishing her career at Weber State in the historic 2019 season, throwing a 10-3 record and 2.39 ERA while being the winning pitcher in an NCAA Tournament win over Cal State Fullerton — the only NCAA win in program and conference history. After working as a WSU volunteer coach in 2021, she’s spent time as a pitching coach at Maryville College and Arkansas Tech.

“She knows the culture here because she played here, and it’s been nice to have her back,” Delahoussaye said. “She brought some good perspective because she’s been in other places … very passionate about pitching and making sure that we’re developing individually as pitchers go while having a single goal in mind as a staff.”

Mortensen is a Weber County native and has coached competitive softball for USA Athletics, and high school softball at Layton and Farmington high schools, for 15 years.

“He has a family, he’s coached lots of younger kids through lots of things, so he brings a good perspective and sometimes remembers things I forget or take for granted,” Delahoussaye said. “Things like, ‘we already know how to do that’ and he’s like, ‘but do we?’ … The girls love him. He’ll get talking about the mental game and all the girls will get their journals out.”

WILDCATS UNDERWAY

Weber State’s 2025 squad gave Delahoussaye a win out of the gate with a Feb. 7 tournament win over UMass-Lowell. In a 5-1 victory, senior Jayci Finch gave up one hit in three innings and freshman Raina Navarro closed the final four innings.

WSU went 3-2 that weekend in a San Antonio tournament hosted by UTSA. The Wildcats were one play from starting the season 4-0 but lost twice to the hosts for a 3-2 mark. That included wins of 15-5 and 11-2 over SIU-Edwardsville. The 11-2 game featured catcher Eva Richardson and outfielder Gianna Memoli each homering twice in the first two innings. Freshman Apollonia Maldonado also left the yard in that win.

Things got much tougher in the second week and WSU went 0-5 from Feb. 13-15 tournament at Arizona State. The Wildcats got run-ruled by Oregon and Washington, both ranked in the Top 25, hosts Arizona State, and warm-weather squad Grand Canyon.

WSU closed that trip with a 12-8 loss to Belmont, chipping back from down 12-4 before falling short.

Through 10 games, junior Riley Whalen leads WSU with a .414 batting average with nine RBIs and two homers. Memoli is hitting .333 with eight RBIs and Richardson is .294 with seven driven in.

The tough weekend against elite competition set back pitching stats but Finch leads WSU with a 5.14 ERA and a 1.65 WHIP. Batters only hit .289 against sophomore Joslynn Veltien but she’s issued 12 walks in 12.1 innings.

Weber plays in St. George this weekend to face Utah State, San Diego, Boise State, UC San Diego and Utah Tech.

The Wildcats opened the Utah Tech-hosted tournament with an 11-10 defeat to Utah State on Friday afternoon. Freshman Sadie Kirk hit a two-RBI single to give WSU a 6-4 lead through four innings and pitcher Brooke Merrill handed the ball to freshman RJ Parra with that lead.

Parra surrendered four of Utah State’s six home runs over the last three innings, the final one giving USU an 11-6 lead in the seventh.

But the game totaled 30 hits between the teams so, in its final at-bat, Weber State rallied. Eva Richardson and Jordan Hart each drove in a run with singles before Riley Whalen drove in two on a double to cut the score to 11-10.

With Whalen on second as the tying run, Taegan Smith flew out to centerfield to end the game.