Building Winning Teams: Difficult Conversations

Dan Weiler enters his sixth year as head coach of Johns Hopkins women’s soccer in 2026. In five seasons of competition, he has guided the Blue Jays to a 90-13-10 record, four consecutive Centennial Conference championships, and the program’s first NCAA national championship.

In 2022, Weiler led Johns Hopkins to a 23-0-2 record and a 21-game winning streak that culminated in the NCAA Division III title. The Blue Jays scored a program-record 99 goals that season, and Weiler was named D3soccer.com National Coach of the Year. His teams have continued to make deep NCAA Tournament runs, including a quarterfinal appearance in 2024 and a Sweet 16 berth in 2025.

Before coming to Johns Hopkins, Weiler led Christopher Newport to a 113-22-12 record, six NCAA Tournament appearances, and the program’s first national semifinal appearance. He previously spent 11 seasons as head coach at Concordia College in Minnesota.

Weiler enters 2026 with 347 career victories and is the only active women’s soccer coach with 100 or more wins at two different Division III schools.

Bayleigh Braswell was named the 11th head coach in Johns Hopkins volleyball history in February 2025. She came to Homewood after three seasons as an assistant coach at Division I Loyola Maryland, where she was involved in all facets of the program, including practice and game planning, scouting, recruiting, and operations.

During her time at Loyola, Braswell helped the Greyhounds make three consecutive Patriot League Tournament appearances and coached multiple All-Patriot League and Academic All-Patriot League selections. Before Loyola, she spent three seasons at Elizabethtown College, rising from assistant coach to associate head coach and serving briefly as interim head coach. She helped lead Elizabethtown to three straight Landmark Conference semifinal appearances.

Braswell also coached at Spooky Nook Sports, where 18 of her players went on to compete collegiately.

As a student-athlete, Braswell began her career at Louisiana Monroe before transferring to Penn State. She played indoor and beach volleyball at ULM and later competed as a defensive specialist for a Penn State team that reached the NCAA Tournament.

Ryan Cain became the 17th head coach in Johns Hopkins men’s basketball history in 2023. In his first three seasons, he guided the Blue Jays to two 20-win campaigns, three appearances in the Centennial Conference championship game, and a return to the NCAA Tournament in 2025-26.

Before coming to Johns Hopkins, Cain spent eight seasons as head coach at Keene State, compiling a 146-66 record with five 20-win seasons and five NCAA Tournament appearances. His teams won four Little East Conference Tournament titles and twice captured the conference regular-season championship. In 2023, Cain was named both Little East Conference Coach of the Year and NABC Region 2 Coach of the Year after leading Keene State to a program-record 28 wins and an NCAA Sweet 16 appearance.

Cain previously spent eight seasons as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As a player at WPI, he became the program’s all-time leading scorer, earned All-America honors, and won the 2007 Jostens Trophy as the top student-athlete in Division III.