New Idaho State softball coach Harold Simmons has a pretty general job description for his first assistant coach, Garrett Fisher.

“His expertise is workload,” Simmons, who was hired on June 18, said of his new assistant coach. “He’s going to help in the defensive coordination, and on the offensive side of things. He’s a jack of all trades — he’ll help with data, analytics, some scouting. He got a chance to do a lot of things on the Colorado [State] staff, which made him really valuable to me.”

Right now, it’s just Simmons and Fisher working together to keep all the returners from last year’s Big Sky Conference championship team on board, while keeping as many committed recruits as possible from defecting after the departure of former coach Andrew Rich to Boise State.

So far, the Bengals have lost three returners to the transfer portal before Rich’s departure, but none from the current roster to Boise State. Rich has landed two former ISU recruits from the 2026 class and two from the 2027 class — all pitchers.

Fisher, who was a catcher at Northern Colorado during his playing days, comes from a deep softball background. His mother, Jen Fisher, was the winningest softball coach in Colorado State history, announcing her retirement in May after 16 seasons at the helm. Garrett Fisher coached on her staff for the past two seasons.

“His mom was a head coach at the junior college, D-2 and D-1 levels, so he’s really grown up around the sport,” said Simmons. “He was a catcher. Having a catching coach is sometimes very rare, but it will be very, very helpful.”

Simmons is hoping to give Fisher some help soon. He’s done a couple of interviews with candidates for the Bengal pitching coach position, and he’s got a couple more scheduled this week.

“I’ve got a couple of athletes pitching professionally that really needed to get through before they could take on the coaching role,” Simmons said Monday.

The next question is who that new pitching coach will be working with, after the departure of Big Sky Pitcher of the Year Marley Goluskin to Cal State Fullerton, Lizzy Tommasini to Utah and leading winner Kasey Aguinaga to graduation.

That has left Simmons with Megan Meracle, who posted a 9.00 earned run average in just eight appearances, from last year’s pitching staff. He also has Aubrey Hansen, who signed with ISU out of Salt Lake Community College this spring, and Paige Warren, a British Columbia native, who Simmons signed from McCook Junior College in Nebraska.

“Paige pitched them to the Junior College World Series,” said Simmons. “She’s probably not going to come in here and be the ace of the staff, but she should give us a lot of great innings and bring a competitive edge to our staff.”

Meracle pitched the first perfect game in ISU history as a freshman in 2025, while putting together a 9-2 record with a 3.11 earned run average that season. The Borah High School graduate didn’t get much opportunity this past season, but Simmons believes she can be a No. 1 starter for the Bengals.

“I went back and watched her stuff, and in talking with the previous staff, I truly believe Megan can be an ace in this conference,” said Simmons. “Now it’s a question of how we can help her grow into that.”

Simmons has a couple of other pitching recruits scheduled to visit campus this week.

While Rich has managed to pirate four of ISU’s pitching commits to Boise State, Simmons has been pretty successful holding on to the other players who had committed to Idaho State. The six position players, including two high school outfielders from Southern California that Rich was very high on, have recommitted to enroll at Idaho State this fall.

Simmons has also been able to keep several of the 2027 ISU commits and has added a couple of Colorado players to the class that he’s excited about. He can’t comment on the 2027 players until they officially sign with Idaho State in the fall.

Emma McGwire, the Idaho 5A Player of the Year as a junior at Blackfoot High School, has publicly committed to the Bengals as part of that 2027 class. The catcher led all of the 5A class with 15 home runs while batting .515 for the Broncos this past season.

Rounding out the pitching staff and finishing recruiting for the summer are Simmons’ next priorities.

“Finding some portal pitching — that’s No. 1,” he said. “Then finishing up summer recruiting. The PGF [Premier Girls Fastpitch tournament] is in four days in southern California. We’ll finish that out and then start building a calendar.”

Simmons has been on the road recruiting with the exception of a few days since he got hired by ISU on June 18. His family hasn’t been to Pocatello yet, although his wife has been “house hunting” via the internet. Their plan is to allow his daughter, a sophomore, to compete in fall softball while his other daughter, a seventh grader, takes part in volleyball in Colorado this fall. Then they’ll get serious about joining Simmons in Pocatello.