NEWARK, Del. -- Laura Ratz, who was a standout rower at Washington College and coached last year in Australia, has been named a graduate assistant coach with the University of Delaware women’s rowing program, head coach Laura Slice has announced.

Ratz (at right) replaces Richard Wilson, who has accepted the head coach position at Mary Washington College after two years on the Blue Hen staff as graduate assistant. She joins a staff that includes Slice and assistant coaches Courtney Levering and Jenn Boutin.

A native of Annapolis, Md. (Annapolis High School), Ratz is enrolled in graduate school at UD in the College of Business and Economics.

She was a four-year standout at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. and led the Shorewomen to a No. 12 national ranking her senior year in 2008 when the team placed 11th in the heavyweight eights race at the NCAA Division III Championships. The team also captured the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Championships that season.

Ratz was a Dean’s List student at Washington College and earned her degree in economics in 2008. She also was a member of Omicron Delta Epsilon National Economic Honor Society and studied abroad at the University of London, Royal Holloway in Surrey, England in 2006.

She began her coaching career this past year in Australia at Gippsland Grammar School in Sale, Victoria where she coached the senior/varsity girls team and oversaw the physical training and rowing techniques for the team.

Ratz also has been a lifeguard, was an office aid and tour guide at Washington College, and served as a camp counselor at the Chesapeake Crew Camp for Girls and the Navy Camp for Girls while in college.

She resides in Newark.