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March 8, 2025, may not be the most important date of Megan Bartlett’s life, but she probably added it to her list of favorites.
If you didn’t know, Megan Bartlett is the married name of the former Megan Ciolli, a three-sport athlete and 2001 Indiana Miss Softball Award winner at Terre Haute North High School a couple decades ago.
After North, she played four seasons (2002-05) as a center fielder on Notre Dame’s softball team, winning the Big East Player of the Year Award in 2004 and helping the Fighting Irish reach the NCAA tournament all four times.
After graduating with a bachelor’s in business administration (the first of three degrees for her) in 2005, she became an assistant coach at Loyola, Northern Illinois, DePaul and Purdue.
Then Bartlett snagged her first head-coaching job at Ball State in July 2015, where she racked up a record of 141-108 over five seasons (2016-20).
An offer Bartlett couldn’t refuse arose following the 2020 pandemic-ruined season and Bartlett moved her family — husband Mike (a former pro hockey player) and future superstar daughters Vivian and Maren — south so she could serve as an assistant for University of Texas softball coach Mike White.
By the end of the grueling 2022 campaign, Bartlett, White and the Longhorns had worked their way to the Women’s College World Series best-of-three championship series against Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. They lost both games to the favored Sooners, but just getting there — especially after finishing third in the Big 12 Conference regular season — was an incredible journey.
In June 2022 came the big break Bartlett had been waiting for — an opportunity to coach one of the most highly respected NCAA Division I softball conferences in the country — the Big 12.
Arizona State, which had captured the Women’s College World Series title twice in the past (2008 and 2011 under Clint Myers), hoped to find a new program leader and its administrators apparently noticed how confidently Bartlett carried herself for Texas’ staff under the national spotlight. From Bartlett’s perspective, there was a longstanding softball tradition in Tempe, Ariz., to use as a recruiting tool.
Win/win.
Now we’re not going to lie to you. Bartlett’s first two seasons with the Sun Devils turned into learning experiences. They finished 22-26 in 2023 and 20-31 at the end of an injury-plagued 2024.
But 2025 marked her third season there, her veteran players had matured and an influx of young, hungry athletes isn’t hurting at all. Arizona State took records of 24-12 overall and 6-6 in the Big 12 heading into Wednesday night’s home clash with No. 18-ranked Oklahoma State.
The Sun Devils recently beat rival Arizona, ranked 12th in the most recent ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll, to keep the Wildcats from sitting atop the Big 12. No. 14 Texas Tech leads at 8-1, followed by Arizona at 8-4. Meanwhile, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Brigham Young and ASU make the top half of the conference cluttered with talented teams.
In fact, Arizona State appeared in the “also receiving votes” category of the ESPN.com poll last week, despite dropping two of three games to Arizona two weekend ago. Graduate student/outfielder Kelsey Hall of Sacramento, Calif., is one of Bartlett’s top offensive performers, sporting a .372 batting average with eight home runs, a team-high 38 runs batted in, six doubles and 12 walks through the Longhorns’ first 36 games.
Hold on a second. I almost forgot to describe what happened to Bartlett on March 8, didn’t I?
On that day, the Sun Devils broke a 4-4 tie against BYU with a run in the bottom of the eighth/final inning to provide Bartlett with her 200th career victory as a Division I head coach. Afterward, ASU players dumped Gatorade on her during a rare chilly day at Alberta B. Farrington Softball Stadium.
Since then, Bartlett’s Sun Devils won seven more games prior to Wednesday, boosting her total to 207.
I I I
“I certainly feel very blessed, very grateful, to lead the Sun Devils,” Bartlett told me during a phone interview from her Tempe home. “I came to the program in a moment of big transition. … I immediately had to go into ‘building’ mode. It has certainly been an adventure, but it’s been awesome.
“This group is the beginning of what I think will put Arizona State softball back on the national stage. … The future is very bright here and we’re excited about it.”
History may be on Bartlett’s side (or maybe not).
The good news: The Big 12 has produced eight of the 42 WCWS champions since the tournament debuted in 1982. The bad news: Oklahoma won all eight of them, including the last four, although the Sooners (and Texas) have since left the Big 12 to compete in the Southeastern Conference. (Arizona State was a member of the Pac-10 Conference when the Sun Devils claimed WCWS championships in 2008 and 2011.)
“The move of Oklahoma and Texas out of the Big 12 Conference, from a competitive standpoint, was certainly kind of a bummer,” Bartlett admitted. “Those are incredible programs. They’ve been a ton of fun to play and certainly Texas is near and dear to my heart.”
Looking ahead, the 2025 Big 12 tournament will take place May 7-10 in the same Oklahoma City stadium (Devon Park) where the Women’s College World Series takes place. Bartlett believes the Big 12 is the second-best conference for softball in the country, trailing only the SEC.
“There’s just a lot of parody in college softball right now,” Bartlett assessed. “On any given day … that’s why you play the game.”
Whether her goal of winning the Women’s College World Series happens this season or another season, Bartlett promised to maintain her focus.
“Honestly, we just need to continue to add talent to the program,” she stressed, adding that these women also must be of high character. “We have to continue to recruit and then retain our talent in this world of the transfer portal and NIL [Name, Image and Likeness].”
I I I
Bartlett hasn’t forgotten her Indiana roots while climbing the ladder to coaching success, whether it be Terre Haute North, Notre Dame or Ball State.
“I have said many times that I loved my time at Ball State,” she mentioned. “I was home. We had young kids at the time. My mom and dad got to spend a ton of time with Vivi and Maren so I could be out and about recruiting and doing what I needed to do. … I don’t think I have enough good things to say about Ball State and my time there. Mid-major, that’s where I learned how to build a staff and learned how to build a culture and my vision and really cut my teeth on some of the finer points [of coaching softball].”
Bartlett said she still visits the Terre Haute branch of her family tree about twice each summer.
Jack Kirchner, who was Megan Ciolli’s head coach for part of her time as a Terre Haute North softball player, said he’s not surprised that she became a top-tier college softball coach.
“I had Megan for two years,” he recalled. “Megan was a lot of fun to watch. Everybody we played knew who she was. Heck of an athlete. All the physical attributes, blazing speed, hit with power, strong arm and the mental attributes as well. Very good defensive skills. She had a .596 batting average at North. That’s all four years combined.
“Had that killer instinct. If she made an error in a game [which didn’t happen often], she would ask to stay after practice and take groundballs. Best of all, she was a great young lady and student. I can’t say enough. I knew what ever she wanted to do after college, she would do it and be the best at it.”
Kirchner was glad he got to play a role, regardless of how big or small, in her development.
“I got to watch her play for four years and I didn’t have to buy a ticket,” he said.
Continue reading...
If you didn’t know, Megan Bartlett is the married name of the former Megan Ciolli, a three-sport athlete and 2001 Indiana Miss Softball Award winner at Terre Haute North High School a couple decades ago.
After North, she played four seasons (2002-05) as a center fielder on Notre Dame’s softball team, winning the Big East Player of the Year Award in 2004 and helping the Fighting Irish reach the NCAA tournament all four times.
After graduating with a bachelor’s in business administration (the first of three degrees for her) in 2005, she became an assistant coach at Loyola, Northern Illinois, DePaul and Purdue.
Then Bartlett snagged her first head-coaching job at Ball State in July 2015, where she racked up a record of 141-108 over five seasons (2016-20).
An offer Bartlett couldn’t refuse arose following the 2020 pandemic-ruined season and Bartlett moved her family — husband Mike (a former pro hockey player) and future superstar daughters Vivian and Maren — south so she could serve as an assistant for University of Texas softball coach Mike White.
By the end of the grueling 2022 campaign, Bartlett, White and the Longhorns had worked their way to the Women’s College World Series best-of-three championship series against Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. They lost both games to the favored Sooners, but just getting there — especially after finishing third in the Big 12 Conference regular season — was an incredible journey.
In June 2022 came the big break Bartlett had been waiting for — an opportunity to coach one of the most highly respected NCAA Division I softball conferences in the country — the Big 12.
Arizona State, which had captured the Women’s College World Series title twice in the past (2008 and 2011 under Clint Myers), hoped to find a new program leader and its administrators apparently noticed how confidently Bartlett carried herself for Texas’ staff under the national spotlight. From Bartlett’s perspective, there was a longstanding softball tradition in Tempe, Ariz., to use as a recruiting tool.
Win/win.
Now we’re not going to lie to you. Bartlett’s first two seasons with the Sun Devils turned into learning experiences. They finished 22-26 in 2023 and 20-31 at the end of an injury-plagued 2024.
But 2025 marked her third season there, her veteran players had matured and an influx of young, hungry athletes isn’t hurting at all. Arizona State took records of 24-12 overall and 6-6 in the Big 12 heading into Wednesday night’s home clash with No. 18-ranked Oklahoma State.
The Sun Devils recently beat rival Arizona, ranked 12th in the most recent ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 Poll, to keep the Wildcats from sitting atop the Big 12. No. 14 Texas Tech leads at 8-1, followed by Arizona at 8-4. Meanwhile, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Brigham Young and ASU make the top half of the conference cluttered with talented teams.
In fact, Arizona State appeared in the “also receiving votes” category of the ESPN.com poll last week, despite dropping two of three games to Arizona two weekend ago. Graduate student/outfielder Kelsey Hall of Sacramento, Calif., is one of Bartlett’s top offensive performers, sporting a .372 batting average with eight home runs, a team-high 38 runs batted in, six doubles and 12 walks through the Longhorns’ first 36 games.
Hold on a second. I almost forgot to describe what happened to Bartlett on March 8, didn’t I?
On that day, the Sun Devils broke a 4-4 tie against BYU with a run in the bottom of the eighth/final inning to provide Bartlett with her 200th career victory as a Division I head coach. Afterward, ASU players dumped Gatorade on her during a rare chilly day at Alberta B. Farrington Softball Stadium.
Since then, Bartlett’s Sun Devils won seven more games prior to Wednesday, boosting her total to 207.
I I I
“I certainly feel very blessed, very grateful, to lead the Sun Devils,” Bartlett told me during a phone interview from her Tempe home. “I came to the program in a moment of big transition. … I immediately had to go into ‘building’ mode. It has certainly been an adventure, but it’s been awesome.
“This group is the beginning of what I think will put Arizona State softball back on the national stage. … The future is very bright here and we’re excited about it.”
History may be on Bartlett’s side (or maybe not).
The good news: The Big 12 has produced eight of the 42 WCWS champions since the tournament debuted in 1982. The bad news: Oklahoma won all eight of them, including the last four, although the Sooners (and Texas) have since left the Big 12 to compete in the Southeastern Conference. (Arizona State was a member of the Pac-10 Conference when the Sun Devils claimed WCWS championships in 2008 and 2011.)
“The move of Oklahoma and Texas out of the Big 12 Conference, from a competitive standpoint, was certainly kind of a bummer,” Bartlett admitted. “Those are incredible programs. They’ve been a ton of fun to play and certainly Texas is near and dear to my heart.”
Looking ahead, the 2025 Big 12 tournament will take place May 7-10 in the same Oklahoma City stadium (Devon Park) where the Women’s College World Series takes place. Bartlett believes the Big 12 is the second-best conference for softball in the country, trailing only the SEC.
“There’s just a lot of parody in college softball right now,” Bartlett assessed. “On any given day … that’s why you play the game.”
Whether her goal of winning the Women’s College World Series happens this season or another season, Bartlett promised to maintain her focus.
“Honestly, we just need to continue to add talent to the program,” she stressed, adding that these women also must be of high character. “We have to continue to recruit and then retain our talent in this world of the transfer portal and NIL [Name, Image and Likeness].”
I I I
Bartlett hasn’t forgotten her Indiana roots while climbing the ladder to coaching success, whether it be Terre Haute North, Notre Dame or Ball State.
“I have said many times that I loved my time at Ball State,” she mentioned. “I was home. We had young kids at the time. My mom and dad got to spend a ton of time with Vivi and Maren so I could be out and about recruiting and doing what I needed to do. … I don’t think I have enough good things to say about Ball State and my time there. Mid-major, that’s where I learned how to build a staff and learned how to build a culture and my vision and really cut my teeth on some of the finer points [of coaching softball].”
Bartlett said she still visits the Terre Haute branch of her family tree about twice each summer.
Jack Kirchner, who was Megan Ciolli’s head coach for part of her time as a Terre Haute North softball player, said he’s not surprised that she became a top-tier college softball coach.
“I had Megan for two years,” he recalled. “Megan was a lot of fun to watch. Everybody we played knew who she was. Heck of an athlete. All the physical attributes, blazing speed, hit with power, strong arm and the mental attributes as well. Very good defensive skills. She had a .596 batting average at North. That’s all four years combined.
“Had that killer instinct. If she made an error in a game [which didn’t happen often], she would ask to stay after practice and take groundballs. Best of all, she was a great young lady and student. I can’t say enough. I knew what ever she wanted to do after college, she would do it and be the best at it.”
Kirchner was glad he got to play a role, regardless of how big or small, in her development.
“I got to watch her play for four years and I didn’t have to buy a ticket,” he said.
Continue reading...
