Bio

Kimber Cortemelia was named the ninth head coach in Seward County softball history on July 9th, 2025. The 2025-2026 season will be her first at the helm of the Saints program.

Prior to Seward, Cortemelia (pronounced Cort-uh-meal-ia), spent two seasons on staff as an assistant coach at Butler Community College in El Dorado, Kansas. While at Butler, she helped the Grizzlies to two Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference (KJCCC) regular season championships as well as an NJCAA Region 6 Tournament Championship and bid to the NJCAA Division 1 World Series in 2025. She helped seven different infielders to All-Jayhawk Conference honors across her two seasons and saw multiple players become two-time All-Conference players. Cortemelia also helped Butler produce an NJCAA All-American in 2024. Across her two seasons with Butler as an assistant, the Grizzlies finished 89-19 and 57-7 in conference games. Her duties with the Grizzlies included overseeing the infielders as well as helping with travel and spending time on the road recruiting.

She also managed a private softball lesson business, helping train over 30 young softball players as well as two separate travel ball teams in the Butler County area.

Cortemelia helped Butler to an appearance in the NJCAA Division 1 Softball World Series in 2025 as Butler finished 45-9, winning the regular season KJCCC Championship as well as the Region 6 Tournament Championship to clinch a spot in Yuma, Arizona. Cortemelia oversaw the infield, coaching all three of Butler's first team All-KJCCC selections (Claire Lopez, Kylie Forney and Kory Schoenfeld) on a daily basis. Cortemelia was instrumental in coaching the Grizzlies infield defense, with Butler's fielding percentage of .960 ranking 14th best across all of NJCAA Division 1. After working primarily in the outfield as a freshman, Kory Schoenfeld was Butler's everyday shortstop in 2025 and Cortemelia helped mentor her as she raised her batting average from .336 as a freshman to .423 as a sophomore, also finishing with 13 extra base hits in year two compared to three as a freshman. She also coached Claire Lopez to NFCA All-Region status as Lopez hit .484 with 88 hits and 57 stolen bases.

Cortemelia's first season on staff (2024) saw the Grizzlies finish 47-10 and 30-2 in Jayhawk play, earning the program's 18th conference title along the way. Cortemelia helped coach the infielders and she helped mentor sophomore shortstop Aly Hageman to first team All-KJCCC honors as the Kingman native hit .411 with a team-high 12 home runs, team-high tying 14 doubles and team-high six triples. Cortemelia also helped play a part in the development of freshman second baseman Claire Lopez who was named an NJCAA All-American. Lopez led the conference with a .522 batting average in 43 games started at second base. Her 72 hits led Butler and were fifth most in the Jayhawk.

Cortemelia, a former NJCAA All-American infielder, holds extensive playing experience at both the NCAA D1 level as well as the NJCAA level.

She spent four seasons (2020-23) at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) as a utility player for the Mavericks who played in the Sun Belt Conference as well as the WAC. She appeared in 104 games making 94 starts. As a true utility swiss-army knife, Cortemelia spent time at first, second, third and shortstop, as well as playing in the outfield with the Mavericks. Across her career she tallied 72 hits, 52 RBI, 11 home runs and held a .357 on-base percentage while fielding .955. She was named Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week during the 2020 season and her seven RBI's in a win over UTSA during the 2020 season is tied for second most in program history.

Prior to the four seasons at UTA, Cortmelia played one season for the Blinn Buccaneers under head coach Rick Church in 2019. She was named the 2019 Region XIV South Player of the Year, a 2019 NJCAA D1 third team All-American as well as a NFCA D1 All-Region Midwest second team player. She led the Buccaneers with a .422 batting average, 73 hits, 16 doubles and a .490 on-base percentage. Cortemelia and the Buccaneers finished with a program-record 23-1 conference record and won the Region XIV South Division Championship. Blinn finished 44-15 and were ranked 17th in the final NJCAA national poll.

Cortemelia signed with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette out of high school under then head coach Michael Lotief. She redshirted in her lone season with the Ragin' Cajuns in 2018 following a mid-year coaching change before transferring to Blinn.

She graduated from Brazoswood High School (TX) in 2017 after playing four seasons of varsity softball for head coach Laura Oltman. At Brazoswood, Cortemelia earned First Team All-District, All-County and All-State honors in 2017. She helped lead Brazoswood to the third round of the Texas UIL 6A playoffs in both 2014 (freshman) and 2016 (junior) and the fifth round in 2015 (sophomore).

A Lake Jackson, Texas, native, Cortemelia received her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2021. She received a Master of Science degree in policy and leadership studies from UTA in 2023.