After a 13-5 record last season, AACC Women’s Lacrosse will have to replace a majority of last season’s roster.

In his 19th and final season, head coach Jim Griffiths said he hopes to have a full roster by the first practice on Jan. 24.

Griffiths, who also coaches cross country at the college, retired from coaching lacrosse at the end of last season.

Griffiths said he wants to focus on his job as the chair of the physical education department at Wiley H. Bates Middle School in Annapolis.

“It got to the point where between school and the demands of coaching two sports here, it got to be too much,” Griffiths said. “I wasn’t able to put the energy that I had in the past into the [lacrosse] program. I felt that it was time for somebody else to step in and do it.”

AACC Athletics was unable to hire a replacement in time for the spring season, so Griffiths agreed to return for one more season.

“At the junior college level when you fold a program, especially a women’s sport, the odds of it taking off again are not very good,” Griffiths said.

According to Athletics Director Duane Herr, fewer than 12 people applied for the job. He offered it to one coach after two rounds of interviews, but the candidate declined the position.

“The people that we had interviewed were good coaches,” Herr said. “The challenge with hiring a part-time coach is that the reality is that these people have full-time jobs and full-time commitments.”