SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Former Rogers State Hillcat Lance Rymel led the High-A South Bend Cubs to their second Midwest League Championship in three years earlier this year. Rymel is in his first season as the manager of the Chicago Cubs minor league team.
 
"I couldn't have asked for a better start to my full-season managerial career than winning a league championship in my first season," said Rymel. "Before this season, the most I had managed in a season was 60 games in rookie league. So, going through the full 162-game season was a different kind of grind, but we went to work everyday and it paid off by winning the league."
 
The Cubs finished the 2022 season with a record of 73-58 by capturing Midwest League West Division pennant with a 2-1 series win over the Cedar Rapids Kernels. They went on to claim the Midwest League Championship in a 2-1 series win over the Lake County Captains, including a 7-4 win the deciding game three of the series.
 
Rymel, a native of Broken Arrow, Okla., was drafted out of RSU by the Chicago Cubs in the 28th round of the 2012 First-Year Player Draft. He spent three seasons playing at various levels of the Cubs organization.
 
"I am really blessed to have had the three seasons I played in the minor leagues," Rymel said. "I got the opportunity to play with a lot of the guys who went on to help the organization win the 2016 World Series. When you're playing behind future All-Stars like Willson Contreras, I understood there wasn't much room for advancement, but I am grateful for the opportunities that I got."
 
After being released by the Colorado Rockies in 2015, Rymel got his first chance at a coaching position. While at home in Broken Arrow, he received a call from Tim Cossins, the former field coordinator for the Cubs, saying the club was in need of a rehab coach. Rymel jumped at the opportunity and spent the next two years working as bullpen catcher and hitting batting practice for Cubs players who were returning from injury and helping them get back to the game.
 
He got his first manager job in the Dominican League in 2017. He then moved on to managing the Eugene Emeralds of the Short Season Northwest League in 2019. In 2021, he took over managing the Mesa Solar Sox of the Arizona Fall League, a six-team league consisting of the top prospects from all 30 teams in Major League Baseball.
 
Rymel's time on the Hill began back in 2010 as a transfer from Seminole State. He was a part of some of the most successful teams in school history. Rymel was the starting catcher on both the 2011 team that won the first Sooner Athletic Conference Championship in school history and the 2012 squad that made it all the way to the National Championship game of the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho and finished as runners-up to Tennessee Wesleyan.
 
"I am so grateful that Coach [Ron] Bradley and Coach [Robert] Brown brought me to Rogers State," Rymel said. "From winning the conference championship in Lubbock, which was a hard place to win, to the World Series trip to Idaho, those days provided me with some of the best memories of my life."