BEAUMONT — SEC coaching veteran Steve Holeman was named head women’s soccer coach at Lamar, the university announced Tuesday.

Holeman recently coached at Georgia, where he posted a 53-39-11 record and went to two NCAA tournaments in five years. The Bulldogs were ranked as high as 14^th in 2014.

“First of all, I’m excited to get started at Lamar University,” Holeman said in a news release. “I also want to say thank you to [athletic director] Jason Henderson and [senior woman administrator] Helene Thill for having the confidence in me to lead this program. Lamar has a strong combination of academic excellence and athletic facilities, which provides great potential for positive things to happen. In addition, I have family in Houston, so this was a great fit for me and my family.”

Holeman has a record of signing high-ranking classes to a program. His 2013 signing class ranked 10^th nationally and the 2014 group was 11^th-best.

“Throughout this whole process, the thing that really stood out to me was his plan of how he would approach the job and his style of play,” Henderson said in the release. “Based on his ties to the club system and development programs, he brings a strong recruiting foundation with him to Beaumont.”

A 1990 graduate of Wake Forest, Holeman lettered for the Demon Deacons all four years and won the ACC championship in 1989. He began the program at Auburn in 1993, earning a 7-6-3 record, and went to Ole Miss to start the program there. He went 158-119-28 in Oxford, Mississippi, making four NCAA tournaments and winning the SEC Western Division three times in 16 seasons. Two of his players were SEC freshmen of the year.

He replaces Orlando Cervantes, who resigned following an 8-11-1 season this past fall. Lamar went 31-41-6 seasons under Cervantes, not making the Southland tournament since 2012.