During her six years of attending Hiram College, Giselle Bahena acknowledged that she had come to view Hiram as a second home. Two years after graduating, the Terriers’ alum is returning to become the head softball coach, having been formally announced as Hiram’s 19th softball coach in program history on June 2.
“It was a home for me for six years and I am just happy to be back and start working on the other side of the desk,” the first-year coach said. “My ultimate goal here is just too ultimately give these girls the same experience if not an even better experience than what I had. I am just extremely happy to be back home.”
Bahena returns home after spending two seasons as an assistant softball coach at Case Western Reserve University. She takes over for Scott Pohlman, who returned to coach the program for during the 2025 season,and served as her coach when she played for the Terriers.
According to Bahena, she was aware that Hiram was looking for a new softball coach and had briefly spoken with Pohlman during the season, but talks did not pick up until after the Terriers and Case Western Reserve University seasons ended. She said that she could not turn down the opportunity to return to the place that had become her home away from home.
“Coming back home was the driving factor and hopefully working our way back to some postseason appearances but more importantly, I know what a good experience at Hiram looks like and what it takes to have success on and off the field not only personally,” she said.
In only two seasons with the Spartans, Bahena had served as an assistant coach on teams that qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III postseason in consecutive seasons, including a historic 2024 campaign in which the team reached 40 victories and advanced to the NCAA College World Series championship.
She will take over a Hiram softball program that just concluded its final season as a member of the North Coast Athletic Conference and will lead the team into their debut season into the Presidents’ Athletic Conference next spring. In Bahena’s final two years at Hiram, the Terriers were crowned the NCAC tournament champions, guaranteeing themselves a berth in the NCAA Division III College World Series.
Bahena returns to Myrtis E. Herndon Field after two years to a team of familiar faces, with several players being former teammates.
“Ultimately that respect factor that we both have for each other and that they both have for me, it makes my job easy,” the 2021 graduate said. “The thing that I am most proud of was how I treated my teammates because even after I graduated, I still have all of these amazing connections.”
While it is Bahena’s first head coaching role, leading from the front has been something she has become accustomed to since her freshman season with the Terriers, having been elected as a freshman team captain. She served as a team captain in all six years of her time at Hiram and will assume a similar leadership position that comes with a little more responsibility.
In her six years catching for the Terriers, Bahena set the school record in the number of runners caught stealing a base, longest hitting streak in program history and was named the NCAC tournament MVP in her final two seasons.
For Bahena, she has the task of revitalizing the program in the wake of an early exit in their final NCAC tournament, something she has done once as her class revived Hiram softball by leading it to the NCAC tournament in her senior season then propelling the team to a three-year stretch of being the conference champions. She acknowledged that the reason she stayed an additional two years to pursue her master’s degree at Hiram was to finish the job that the graduating class of 2021 class started.
“My class worked really hard to turn the program around and to get us to a point of success that I don’t think many people thought that we could have,” she noted.
Bahena added that she came to view Hiram as her second home not just because of the softball program’s success but the family nature of the community.
“I say Hiram is a home away from home, but it is the people that make it that way,” she noted. “The moment you walk onto campus, you are immediately immersed into that family culture. I truly mean that, and I tell people I would not have stayed for six years if I didn’t truly feel that on campus and through all of connections that I made.”
