Former Elyria standout Tess Sito is taking her talents to the south.

After two stellar seasons on the diamond at Cleveland State University, Sito officially transferred to the University of Georgia, on Friday, to continue her softball career.

Sito is coming off her sophomore season, where she was named Horizon League Softball Player of the Year for the second year in a row. She made 36 starts and 44 appearances, and led the league in strikeouts (293), wins (24) and innings pitched (272 2/3). At the plate, Sito batted .369 and led the Vikings in hits (58), doubles (11), stolen bases (18) and runs scored. She was the second player in conference history to win the honor as a freshman and sophomore.

Despite her success at Cleveland State, Sito said she was ready to move on.

"I wanted to play at a bigger university," Sito said. "There were a number of schools that I was in contact with, but when Georgia called I was really excited. They really wanted me, they must have did a lot of research on me.

"Once I got down there and talked to the coaches and took the tour I fell in love with the place. When I saw the field and how big it was and all the seats I knew this was for me."

Other schools Sito was in contact with were Auburn, Michigan, Arkansas, Memphis, Virginia and Nebraska.

Sito said there were other factors that played into her decision. A Communication major at CSU, Sito said she was impressed with the Georgia’s Broadcast Journalism program. She also will be close to her sister, Ashley, who lives in Miltown, which is 65 miles from the campus in Athens.

"It’s nice knowing she’s that close," said Sito about her sister. "They’ll be able to come to a lot of the games. Also when my family comes down they will be able to stay there."

Sito will join a Bulldogs team that lost in the Athens Super Regional in the Women’s College World Series. The Bulldogs ended the season with 51-14 record. Sito added she is eager to have a chance to play in the Women’s College World Series.

"It definitely played a role in coming here," Sito said. "After I saw them on TV, I knew I had to take this opportunity.

"We had to win the Horizon League just to get in to the tournament, where they (SEC) had seven schools there this year."

Sito knows the competition will be tougher in the Southeastern Conference, but said she welcomes the challenge.

"Facing top competition everyday is going to be the biggest adjustment," Sito said. "I’ll have to adjust to the pitching and hitting at first, but I know it’s going to be an amazing experience."

Sito added she appreciated everything her coaches and players did for her while she was at Cleveland State.

"I loved my time there," Sito said. "My coaches were great. It was just time for me to start a new chapter in my life."

During her career at Elyria, Sito was 75-9 with an incredible 814 strikeouts in 531 innings. She holds the career and single-season record for strikeouts. Equally as tough at the plate, she batted .470 with 107 RBIs and 143 runs scored. She stole 46 bases in 48 attempts.

Courtesy of Anthony Rios

For the second time in two seasons, Elyria’s Tess Sito, a Cleveland State sophomore, has been named the Horizon League Softball Player of the Year. Sito was also named to the all-league first team.

Sito also was voted player of the year in 2010, making her only the second person in conference history to be earn the honor as a freshman and sophomore.
Sito is the sixth player in conference history to earn multiple player of the year awards and the fifth to earn the distinction in consecutive seasons.

"The more we play, the more it is apparent that Tess is quite simply the best all-around athlete in the league," CSU head coach Angie Nicholson, also an Elyria native, said. "To be chosen as the player of the year again shows the respect that the league has for her."

Sito has made 44 appearances, which include 36 starts. She leads the Horizon League in strikeouts (293), wins (24) and innings pitched (272 2/3). One of the Vikings’ top offensive threats, she’s the Vikings’ leader in hits (58), doubles (11), stolen bases (18) and runs scored (30) and has the second best batting average (.369) in the league. In 75 at-bats against league opponents, she has only struck out five times, posting an OPS of 1.023.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito, a sophomore pitcher at Cleveland State, has been named to the Capital One Academic All-District IV team in a voting of the membership of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Sito, who owns a 3.72 grade point average majoring in communication, is the top all-around player in the Horizon League this year, owning a 24-14 record and 1.58 ERA with 278 strikeouts as a pitcher while ranking among the league leaders with a .364 batting average.

"It is a honor that Tess received this award because it shows the balance that she has in her every day life, being able to excel on the softball diamond and in the class room at the same time," CSU head coach Angie Nicholson said. "She plays on a team that is filled with championship caliber student-athletes who are also committed to performing at the highest level in the class room as well. This honor means a lot to our team."

Sito was the 2010 Horizon League Player of the Year after hitting .409 with a school record 18 home runs, 51 runs scored and 45 RBIs. She has taken on the additional role as the No. 1 pitcher on the squad, becoming just the fourth player in school history to win 20 games in a season. She currently leads the Horizon League in wins, strikeouts and innings pitched (260 2/3).

The Academic All-America program honors male and female student-athletes annually who have succeeded at the highest level on the playing field and in the classroom. Individuals are selected through voting by CoSIDA, a 2,000 member organization consisting of sports public relations professionals for colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached at least sophomore athletic and academic standing at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director. District IV consists of the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito continues to impress at Cleveland State, being selected the Horizon League Pitcher of the Week. The accolade is the third pitching honor for Sito in 2011.

Cleveland State split four games last week, dropping a doubleheader at Niagara before sweeping Loyola in League play. Sito appeared on the rubber in all four contests for the Vikings.

Sito was nearly perfect over the weekend, striking out 23 in 17 innings of work, walking just two batters as she carried Cleveland State to two 1-0 victories against Loyola. In the opening win of the doubleheader, Sito struck out a career-high 15 Ramblers, giving up just two hits. In the nightcap, the sophomore came back with eight more strikeouts, carrying a no-hitter into the 10th inning of the eventual victory. On the week, Sito went 2-1 with a 1.21 ERA, totaling 39 strikeouts in 29 innings.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito was named the Horizon League Pitcher of the Week. The accolades is her second honor of the year. Sito went 4-1 with a 0.68 ERA in 31 innings and struck out 37, while walking just five. She struck out a career-high 12 and allowed just one earned run, then came back the following day and pitched 11 of 12 innings in a sweep of Toledo. Against the Rockets, Sito did not allow a run, while pitching a four-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts. On Sunday, Sito threw 13 innings, giving up just two earned runs against Green Bay as the Vikings and Phoenix split the doubleheader.

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Elyria graduate Tess Sito is at it again.

In just the first week of the softball season, Sito, a sophomore at Cleveland State, has already notched another accolade, being named the Horizon League Pitcher of the Week.

Sito, the 2010 Horizon League Player of the Year, did not allow an earned run over 12 2/3 innings, recording two victories. The sophomore went all seven innings in a 1-0 win over Ball State on Saturday, striking out seven to work around six hits — all singles. Sito went 3 2/3 innings in the nightcap on Saturday, adding five more strikeouts. In Sunday’s championship-clinching win, Sito tossed the final two innings.

At the plate, Sito added a homerun and two RBIs in going 5-for-12.

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Elyria graduate Megan Bashak threw five scoreless innings as Cleveland State defeated Belmont, 4-1, on Sunday to claim the team title of the Austin peay Spring Classic with a 3-1 record.

In just her second career start, Bashak went five scoreless innings against Belmont, allowing three hits while striking out six and walking just one to pick up her first career victory. Fellow Elyria graduate Tess Sito, who was battling the side effects of being hit with a line drive on her pitching arm the day before, threw the final two innings, allowing an unearned run on three hits.

The Vikings are now 5-4 on the year.

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Brookside's Salena Kauffman has commited to play softball at Cleveland State University. Brookside will hold a ceremony on Thursday (Nov. 18) at 9:30 a.m.

Kauffman will play her senior season at Brookside this spring. She's been playing varsity softball since her freshman season. She was an All-Patriot Athletic Conference selection Second Teamer last season.

Kauffman has been playing softball since she was five years old and started travel ball in 2005. This past summer in the Queen of Diamond Showcase South, she was a All-QDSS First Teamer, QDSS MVP and Cage MVP.

She was also selected as a catcher for the 2011 North American Select Team for the CUP Tournament in the Netherlands.

Kaufman will join other locals such as Elyria's Tess Sito, Andrea Nagy, Megan Bashak and Ashlee Stolarski. Keystone's Jessica Burt is a senior this season.

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Tess Sito, of Elyria, has reached yet another milestone.

In just her freshman year at Cleveland State, she has added another accolade as she was named to the All-Midwest Region Second Team by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association, released Monday.

"I’m happy with my individual success, but I definitely wish we would’ve made it to that next level and made it to the tournament," said Sito, whose team was eliminated by No. 2 seed Wright State in the Horizon League Championship last week. "I’m not too worried about what I can do individually, as long as I can help the team out."

Sito, who earlier this month was named both the Horizon League Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, set records for runs scored (51), hits (74), home runs (18), slugging percentage (.773) and on-base percentage (.495). She is also second all-time in stolen bases (39) and third in batting average (.409), RBIs (45) and walks (29).

Although Sito basically re-wrote the CSU single-season record book, she remains focused on what she wants to do to be a better player and help her team.

"I definitely want to become a better fielder for next year," Sito said. "I wasn’t too good at shortstop this year. I made a lot of errors, but hopefully I’ll work on that this summer, along with working on my pitching."

Sito ranked in the top 40 nationally in six stat categories and started the season with an 18-game hitting streak, which is also a school record. She led the league in nine of the 12 major offensive statistics.

"Tess had a phenomenal freshman season but she has barely begun to achieve all that she is capable of," Cleveland State softball coach and Elyria-native Angie Nicholson said through a press release. "She is a very special player and I look forward to seeing how much better she can become in the next three years."

Cleveland State missed a berth to the NCAA Division I National Tournament by losing the Horizon League title game to Wright State. Sito only had two hits in her last 14 at-bats.

"Hopefully next season, I’ll come out strong and stay strong throughout the year," Sito said. "Everyone has slumps, but this year I was really mad, because I didn’t do as well as I wanted to in the tournament when it really counted. I’ll work a lot in the summer and hopefully I’ll be better than I was last year. Obviously you always want to be better than you were the year before."

The Vikings record-setting season ended with an impressive 44-15 record, which was the sixth time in eight years that Cleveland State played in the title game, last winning the championship in 2009. Nicholson has played a big part in Sito’s success at the college level.

"Angie (Nicholson) is awesome," Sito said. "You can talk to her whenever. Whenever you have a problem, she’s like another mom at college. She knows everything about hitting, she knows everything about fielding and she gives us little tricks here and there to do. She’s great. Everything about her is awesome. I just love her. She’s just really always there for us and that’s the main thing. And we had a lot of fun, and that’s the most important thing too."

For her high school career at Elyria, Sito went 75-9 on the mound with 814 strikeouts in 531 innings pitched. Her senior year, she helped lead the Pioneers to a state championship after losing the state championship game three years prior. At the plate, she batted .470 with 107 RBIs and 143 runs scored in her career. She also stole 46 bases in 48 attempts.

"(College softball) is a lot quicker," Sito said. "When I went back to watch Elyria, everyone is bigger and stronger in college. In high school, everything seems slower, while college is quick paced and you got to be ready all the time."

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The No. 2 seed Wright State defeated Cleveland State, 8-3 and 6-3, on Saturday to claim the Horizon League Softball Championship.

The Vikings record-setting season ends with an impressive 44-15 record. This was the sixth time in eight years that Cleveland State played in the title game, winning the championship in 2009.

"This was a very tough day for us," CSU head coach Angie Nicholson said on the team's website. "I felt like we were out of sync offensively during the tournament and it really hurt us today.

"We’ve had the ability to battle back and overcome deficits all season long, but today we just didn’t have it. Amanda (Macenko) was throwing well, but Wright State is a great offensive team and they were hitting everything she threw.

The day started with CSU dropping an 8-3 decision in the first meeting with the Raiders. The Vikings jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning as Lia Gordon executed a well-placed bunt, sending home Keystone's Jessica Burt. Katelyn Ciminelli provided the second run as Amy Powell grounded out to the WSU shortstop for the RBI.

Cleveland State took little time regaining the lead as Horizon League Player of the Year Tess Sito, of Elyria, jacked a solo homer to right center, her 18th of season, yielding a 3-2 score.

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Elyria's Tess Sito had an amazing freshman season playing softball at Cleveland State University.

Sito was honored for her outstanding season this week as the Horizon League's Player of the Year. It is the first time a freshman has received the accolade in 13 years.

Sito was also named the league's newcomer of the year, along with a All-Horizon League First Team selection and a member of the league's All-Newcomers team.

Sito finished the season with 18 home runs, a school best, along with other school records. She broke the single-season marks for hits (67) and runs scored (37). She is also second in school history in stolen bases, walks and RBIs.

Sito finished among the Top 20 players nationally in four categories and among the Top 30 in two others.

Keystone's Jessica Burt was named an All-Horizon Second Team selection.

CSU head coach Angie Nicholson also nabbed Horizon League's Coach of the Year award for their record-setting 44-15 overall record.

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Elyria’s Megan Bashak had three hits and drove in a pair of runs to lead Cleveland State over Valparaiso, 5-1, completing a weekend sweep on Sunday afternoon at Viking Field in Cleveland.

The win allowed CSU to end the regular season with a 42-13 record and in first place in the Horizon League with a 22-2 record. It is the most wins ever by the Vikings, also setting a league record for conference victories in a season (old record was 17 by CSU last year).

Cleveland State will host the Horizon League Championship starting Thursday at Viking Field, entering the tourney as the No. 1.

"We came out ready to play all weekend and it showed on the field," Elyria native and CSU head coach Angie Nicholson said on the team’s website. "Today's game didn't mean anything in the conference race but our kids have a lot of pride and they wanted to show that they are the best team in the conference.

"We hit the ball really hard today and found the gaps. I don't like that we left nine runners on base, but that shows how many opportunities we had today."

CSU got its second run in the fourth when Bashak led off with a double, went to third on a fly ball by Keystone’s Jessica Burt and scored on a single by Elyria’s Tess Sito.

The Vikings will now have off until Thursday when they open the defense of their Horizon League Championship title when they play the winner of No. 4 Valparaiso vs. No. 5 Green Bay game beginning at 1:30 p.m. at Viking Field.

For the season, Sito and Burt are 1-2 in hitting. Sito is batting .436 (72-for-165) with nine doubles, a triple, 17 home runs and 44 RBIs. The home runs are most ever by a freshman at CSU. Burt is batting .333 (60-for-180) with 16 doubles, four triples, two home runs and 26 RBIs. Sito and Burt are also 1-2 in steals (Sito-39, Burt-28).

Bashak is batting .244 (29-for-119) with six doubles, a triple, three home runs and 22 RBIs. Elyria's Andrea Nagy is also on the team. She has made nine appearance, including seven starts. She is batting . 211 (4-for-19) with a double, two home runs and four RBIs.

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Cleveland State came back from a 7-3 sixth-inning deficit and swept a doubleheader against Wright State, and have now won 17 of its last 18 games, improving to 26-8 overall and moved into first place in the Horizon League with a 7-1 record. The Vikings moved past Valparaiso (6-1), who was idle from league play.

The Viking scored their only runs in the first when Keystone’s Jessica Burt led off with a single and came around to score when Elyria’s Tess Sito blasted her 13th home run of the season to right centerfield. The homer was Sito’s 13th of the year, tying Lia Gordon’s school record set last year. Sito finished the game 2-for-2 in the game, her 17th multiple hit game of the season.

"Tess is having a remarkable year," CSU head coach Angie Nicholson said. "She just went with the pitch and drove it to right center."

Sito allowed just two hits in three innings of work to get the win and improve to 3-0 on the year while Cox was the loser for Wright State, slipping to 3-2.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito threw a complete game six-hitter as the Vikings defeated UIC, 6-1, on Saturday afternoon.

Sito, who improved to 2-0, scattered six hits in seven innings, and also struck out four and walked two.

"Tess really did a nice job this weekend in the circle," CSU head coach Angie Nicholson said. "She had been having some elbow pain for most of the preseason and is finally healthy enough to pitch at the level that she is capable of. All we have to do is get her strength and endurance back up and we will have the best one-two pitching combo in the league."

Besides her work in the circle, Sito went 2-for-2 at the plate, driving in her team-leading 26th run. She also stole two bases to give her 23 on the season, moving her into 8th place on the CSU single season list.

Elyria's Megan Bashak, who has been slow to come back offensively since breaking her wrist last season, went 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs to complete a three-hit, .429 batting average for the weekend.

Cleveland State improved to 21-8 overall and 2-1 in league play while UIC slips to 8-24 overall and 1-2 in the Horizon League.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito continues to impress in her freshman season at Cleveland State, helping the Vikings to their ninth win in a row, defeating Marist, 4-1 and Columbia, 4-3 in doubleheader action on Friday. With the two wins, CSU improves to 18-7 on the year.

Sito was the hitting standout in the first game, going 1-for-4 with three RBIs. She hit a two-run homerun in the third inning, which was her ninth of the season. Her other RBI came on a RBI groundout, scoring Keystone’s Jessica Burt.

Sito added three hits in game two to move her hitting streak to five straight and 23 of her last 24.

The Vikings return to the Midwest and will be idle until playing a doubleheader in Moon Township, PA against Robert Morris on Thursday.

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Elyria’s Tess Sito wasted no time making her mark in college softball.

Sito hit four home runs and had 10 RBIs in five games over the weekend for Cleveland State, earning her the Horizon League Batter of the Week, in just her first week of playing collegiate softball after a stellar high school career.

"I’m really excited," Sito said. "It wasn’t too much different, just a little faster. Batting-wise I felt really good, once I got my first hit."

Sito went 10-for-18 with two doubles, four home runs, six runs scored and 10 RBIs, while also boasting a 1.333 slugging percentage and a .600 on-base percentage. She also stole three bases.

"I didn’t expect to do so well," Sito said. "Offensively, I just clicked in pretty good. Once you get your first hit, it really gives you a lot more confidence when you step up there.

"I was just really happy with my offense, but defensively, I really want to prove a lot."

Sito also picked up her first pitching win in her first collegiate start, an 11-6 win over Weber State. She allowed four runs on seven hits in five innings.

"My pitching wasn’t the greatest, but there’s always room for improvement," Sito said. "I’m always ready to learn more. Defensively I wasn’t very sound. I had a lot of fumbles at shortstop, but hopefully I’ll do a lot of practicing and I’ll get better at that."

CSU head coach Angie Nicholson, who is also from Elyria, was more than impressed.

"Tess had a phenomenal week at the plate," Nicholson said through a press release. "She was totally zoned in and made the most of her times at the plate. All four of her home runs were blasts that easily cleared the fence.

"She came into the season with a lot of pressure on her because of her past accomplishments on the field but you would have never known it. She was calm and cool and played like a junior or senior. I look forward to seeing what else she can do during her Viking career."

In just her second game as a Viking, Sito went 3-for-3 with two runs scored, four RBI and a pair of home runs to lead CSU over Weber State.

She saved her best game of the weekend for last. In a 12-8 loss to No. 22 Tennessee, Sito went 4-for-5 with three runs scored, a double, two home runs and five RBIs. She also had a solo home run in the first, an RBI double in the second, a lead-off home run in the sixth and a two-run single in the seventh.

Sito is glad to get off to such a good start and is mostly glad that the nerves are gone.

"Even when we were still in Cleveland and we hadn’t even left yet, I was really nervous," Sito said. "I wasn’t sure if I was even going to play and how I was going to do. Once I stepped on the field the first game, a lot of it went away. It was real exciting, but still nervous at the same time."

For her high school career at Elyria, Sito went 75-9 on the mound with 814 strikeouts in 531 innings pitched. Her senior year, she helped lead the Pioneers to a state championship. At the plate, she batted .470 with 107 RBIs and 143 runs scored. She also stole 46 bases in 48 attempts.

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PENDLETON, Indiana - Angie Nicholson, an Elyria native who coaches Cleveland State’s softball team, led the Vikings to their first-ever Horizon League Championship, defeating the University of Illinois-Chicago, 4-2 on Sunday.

With the title, CSU earns the Horizon's League automatic bid into the NCAA Championships and will play Notre Dame (41-15) in an opening round game of the Michigan Regional on Friday.
The Vikings have won 22 of their last 26 games and currently hold a 35-16 record.

"One of our team goals this season was to win the Horizon League title and earn an NCAA bid,“ Nicholson said through a press release. “Now that we have achieved that, it is time to raise our sights a lot higher and go to Ann Arbor this week ready to play and advance … From the top of the lineup to the bottom, you can find a difference making effort from everybody. That's what it takes to be a champion."

Elyria’s Andrea Nagy preserved the championship win with a diving catch to end the game.

"That was the play of the game," Nicholson said. "If that ball gets down, it would probably go all the way to the wall and tie the game, but Andrea got a great jump on it and was able to sprawl out and make the catch."

This was the fifth time in the last seven years that the Vikings advanced to the title game, but CSU had failed to win a title. The only tournament title in CSU history came when the Vikings claimed the Midwestern Collegiate Conference title in 1997.

Nicholson (formerly McCall), who graduated from CSU in 2000, took over as head coach in the fall of 2006 and is the first head coach to lead CSU to back-to-back 30-win seasons. She was also named the Horizon League's co-Coach of the Year last season.

Nagy, a sophomore, has played in 44 games and has 19 starts. She is batting .250 with seven doubles, two home runs, 11 RBIs and 19 runs scored.

Elyria’s Megan Bashak, a freshman, has played in 33 games with 31 starts. She’s batting .340 with nine doubles, three home runs, 19 RBIs and 19 runs scored.

Keystone’s Jessica Burt started two games and went 2-for-4 (.500) with an RBI and a run, before a season-ending knee injury. Last year as a sophomore, she started all 49 games and hit .294 with 40 hits, six doubles, four triples, three home runs, 19 RBIs and 13 stolen bases.

Another Elyria native that will be joining the Vikings next season is Tess Sito, who was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Ohio last year. Sito is having another impressive season this year after going 27-2 with a 0.22 ERA last season. She was also a second team Louisville Slugger NFCA All-America choice, a two-time first team All-Ohio selection and a three-time All-Northeast Ohio Conference selection. And don’t forget the three Ohio State Championships she has led the Pioneers to.

"Tess is simply one of the best pitchers in the country," Nicholson said. "She throws hard with good location and will become even better once she learns the college game."

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