Championship mindset from Day One: The 2025-26 Cuyahoga Community College softball season

PARMA, Ohio (athletics.tri-c.edu) – When building a team and their culture, there's one day that's more important than all the rest: Day one.

The first day establishes the standard for the entire season and sets the tone for everything that follows. While first impressions can be overcome, it is far more effective to build upon a strong foundation than to spend time correcting a weak start.

For the Cuyahoga Community College softball team and head coach Bryan Komlos, that day one is the Player-Parent Meeting, where the coaching staff and athletic department meet with incoming players and their parents to start to install the culture.

"I think it means a lot getting a student-athlete prepared to play from day one, whether it be academically, athletically, getting their classes scheduled, or getting them organized," said Komlos. "Things like that make a big impact throughout the year. They develop attitude and strength because they are all of the same mindset. The players have a championship mindset built in them from day one from how we approach that first meeting."

First impressions, after all, are the most important impressions.

It's easy for Komlos and his staff to sell the championship mindset to their incoming freshmen. In Komlos's 18 years with Tri-C, the Triceratops had made three trips to the NJCAA Division II Softball World Series and claimed seven total OCCAC titles and were the reigning Co-OCCAC Champions heading into the 2026 season. This is a team and a program that knows how to win.

Words in a meeting can only do so much to install that culture, though. The staff and second-year players needed to help build the team into a unit ready to compete.

Competition doesn't start in the spring, though. Instead, the Triceratops embarked on a difficult Fall exhibition schedule to make sure their team was ready to compete. In fact, Komlos used the same thought process that was in his first meeting to set the fall schedules.

"We challenge ourselves quite a bit to play at the highest level in the fall," Komlos said. "We don't care what our record is in the fall, we're just looking to build a solid foundation for the upcoming season. We learn by taking lumps, by working through issues, by playing hard teams."

Establishing a winning culture requires more than words shared in a meeting. While leadership can define the vision and expectations, it is the daily commitment of the coaching staff and returning student-athletes that transforms those principles into reality. Their leadership, accountability, and example are essential in uniting the team and creating a cohesive, competitive program prepared to succeed.

2025's fall schedule was filled with NCAA competitions like Youngstown State, Ohio State, Walsh, John Carroll, and Ursuline. Playing above their division and league allowed the Triceratops to get a feel for how they competed against the best of the best – the talent levels they'd see at the World Series if they made it.

But it didn't stop there. Komlos and his team set up a season-opening trip to Florida to compete against the best of the best of the NJCAA ranks. And Tri-C came out hot. At the Space Coast Spring Games in Melbourne, Florida, the Triceratops posted a 9-2 record overall, not counting an exhibition loss to the Czech Republic National Team. That included an 8-6 win over Bryant & Stratton College (WI), who would later join the Triceratops in the NJCAA Division II Softball World Series field.

Down in Florida, the team started to get a feel for how good they could be. Returning stars Reese Adkins (So./Oak Harbor, Ohio), Isabelle Kepple (So./Miamisburg, Ohio) and Julee Phillips (So./Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) showed they were at the top of their games and ready to take the nation by storm. Quickly, high-impact transfers like Sophie Durbin (So./Mansfield, Ohio/Mount Vernon Nazarene) and Lexi Gray (So./Tallmadge, Ohio/Baldwin-Wallace) hit their strides as well. Freshmen like Adriana Guarnieri (Fr./Chillicothe, Ohio) and Josi Miliken (Fr./Beloit, Ohio) grabbed starting opportunities from the jump and rounded out the dangerous lineup.

With the Florida trip in their rearview mirror, the Triceratops started to tear through the Ohio Community College Athletic Conference competition. In Komlos's eyes, that's because of the preparation the team had in their preseason and early-season contests.

"Because of our efforts in the fall and our schedule in the early spring against tough teams in Florida, that's what made us as strong as we are," Komlos said.

With run-rule wins becoming the standard for the Triceratops in conference play, it might be easy for some teams to coast by and hope that's enough to get to the district and national tournaments. Not these Triceratops. They didn't coast one bit. Instead, they made their coach proud of how resilient they were.

"We didn't break our record for runs in a season, but the team that has that record scored a lot of runs right off the bat," Komlos said. "They'd have the first girl get on base, and the second girl would drive her in. This team would get one to two outs and then still battle. They did not give up one bit."

A 16-1 OCCAC record may not sound like a team that faced a lot of adversity, and Tri-C may not have been this season. But that didn't stop them from gearing up and preparing for a fight every time they took the diamond. A season-closing trip to Maryland showed that the Triceratops packed the schedule full with three consecutive double-headers against quality opponents. Tri-C started hot with three shutout wins, but things got tighter after that.

The second game of the second doubleheader turned into a 14-10 battle against Hagerstown Community College. Tri-C pulled out to a 6-0 lead early, but Hagerstown stormed back with seven consecutive runs in the third and fourth to take their first lead. It wasn't until the top of the seventh inning when Braelyn Boguski (Fr./Parma, Ohio) stole home to kick off a five-run inning that the Triceratops put the Hawks away for good.

Tired and drained, the Triceratops continued to battle the next day. Tri-C fended off a comeback effort from CCBC Catonsville in the first game to escape with a 9-5 win, then attempted a comeback of their own in the second but came up just short as the Cardinals put up four runs in the home half of the sixth against a worn our Tri-C pitching staff.

The regular season may have ended with a loss, but Komlos had touted his team's resiliency the entire season. He knew they could shake off the loss with ease. And boy, did they.

Following a much-needed break, the Triceratops went out to Findlay, Ohio as the No. 1 seed in the Great Lakes Region A Championship with a trip to the World Series on the line. They were ready for it.

"We worked hard to get the team to understand that it's not about the wins until the wins are important," Komlos said.

The Triceratops spent all season figuring out how good they were. What they could withstand. What they could overcome. Now, it was about the wins.

The Triceratops took that to heart, storming through the region to claim the Great Lakes District A Championship, allowing only one unearned run to score the entire three-game tournament. Cuyahoga Community College was World Series bound for the fourth time in program history.

Amongst the nation's best teams, Tri-C was primed and ready to show what they were made of. The first game against Louisburg College didn't go Tri-C's way, but their resilience was on display as the Triceratops had two runners on with two outs, down 4-2 in the top of the seventh, but a great play by the Hurricane third baseman put the rally to an end.

The next day, with their backs against the wall and facing elimination, the Triceratops dominated fellow Region 12 foe Grand Rapids Community College behind three great innings from Jayliana Wilt (Fr./Youngstown, Ohio), who only threw 39 innings prior to the World Series trip and offensive fireworks from Sammi Zabak (So./Broadview Heights, Ohio), Gray and Guarnieri.

Early the next morning, the Triceratops were back in action against Johnson County Community College in another thrilling contest. Down by two runs, 8-6 in the top of the seventh; that resilience was on display again. Durbin fought to a full count, but one fouled off ball found a fielder's glove. Adkins put good contact on the ball but popped out. Gray hit a ball hard and gave it her all down the basepath, but the third out was recorded, and the Tri-C season ended.

Down to the last second, the Tri-C team had the resiliency and battle mentality that Komlos talked about in that first meeting of the season. They exemplified the program's values and fought to one of the best finishes in Cuyahoga Community College softball history.

Along with that came tons of recognition. Adkins won the OCCAC Player of the Year and Golden Glove awards. Komlos took home his fifth OCCAC Coach of the Year award. Phillips earned NJCAA Third Team All-American and Great Lakes District A Tournament MVP. Eight total players earned All-OCCAC honors. Two, Boguski and Guarnieri, were named NFCA/Easton All-American Scholar-Athletes.

The sting of the end of the season is there, but there is plenty to be proud of.

"It's a very, very great honor, in my opinion, because you're voted on by other coaches," Komlos said of his coach of the year nod. "It's an acknowledgement of the program that I built for the past 18 years. And though it's really all about the players and their success, I can tell you that award makes me feel extremely proud."

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