CRETE - Doane University head women’s basketball coach Sheronda Powell has resigned effective immediately. Director of Athletics Matt Franzen made the announcement Monday afternoon.

“We want to thank Coach Powell for her time at Doane and wish her the best,” Franzen said in a written statement.

Powell was named head coach of the Doane women’s basketball team on July 24, 2019, taking the reigns for Tracee Fairbanks who retired after 20 years.

The Tigers are off to an 0-6 start in the 2019-2020 season, with five of those losses coming by 14 points or more. Marissa Webb, in her first year as an assistant coach for the Tigers, announced her resignation last week. Daymarcco Green, Powell’s graduate assistant coach on staff, also resigned from his position earlier this month.

Ryan Baumgartner will assume the role of interim head coach for the women’s basketball team, beginning Nov. 27. He will lead the Tigers through the remainder of the season.

Baumgartner served as a graduate assistant for the women’s program from 2015-17, and has been the top assistant coach for the Doane men’s basketball team since the fall of 2017.

During his time working with the women’s program, Baumgartner helped develop 2017 GPAC Player-of-the-Year Hanah Barnard. He graduated from Doane in 2014 and was a four-year member of the Tigers basketball team.

Baumgartner earned a master’s degree in business management in 2017 from Doane.

Starting in Jan. 2020, former Doane women’s basketball head Ccach Gene Steinmeyer will join the Tiger staff as an assistant coach. Steinmeyer was the Doane head women’s basketball coach from 1984-2000, leading the Tigers to the NAIA semifinals for three straight seasons from 1996-98. He left Doane for NCAA Division II Northwest Missouri State, where he led the Bearcats women’s basketball team to a Final Four appearance in 2011.

Steinmeyer retired in 2012 following 13 seasons at NWMSU. He's a member of the Doane Athletics Hall of Fame as a coach (2009) and as a member of the three semifinalist teams (2018) that were inducted.

Doane played at College of Saint Mary in Omaha Tuesday. Doane's Sports Information Director, Rick Schmuecker, served as the coach for the Tigers in that game to help with the transition. Schmuecker served as an assistant in the women’s program for nine years (2003-12), which included a pair of national tournament appearances.

Schmuecker, who serves as the Assistant Athletics Director for Athletics Communication, has worked behind the scenes of the women’s basketball program since joining Doane in 2001, following two years as a student-coach at Midland University.

The Tigers' athletic department declined any further comment.