Tess Sito is named the best softball player in Ohio. | CHRONICLE

Tess Sito, who pitched and batted Elyria High’s softball team into a third straight state championship game, has been named Ohio player of the year by Gatorade and RISE Magazine. The honor was announced on the magazine’s Web site, RiseMag.com.
Sito, a junior, was a first-team All-Ohio selection for the second year in a row. She completed a remarkable season on Saturday night when she battled toe-to-toe for 10 innings with North Canton Hoover’s Jessica Simpson.
Simpson and the Vikings won a memorable 1-0 thriller and the Division I state championship despite Sito’s 14-strikeout four-hitter.
“I’m very surprised because I don’t know much about it,” Sito said of the honor. “But this is awesome. I read about Jessica Simpson in that magazine last year, but I never thought I’d get anything like this.”
The magazine posted a profile of Sito on the Web site that includes her performance in the state championship game. It quotes North Royalton coach Jim Hoover.
“She’s incredible on the mound, one of the best we’ve seen, and she has an incredible work ethic,” Hoover said. “She’s just a great all-around athlete.”
Sito and the Pioneers defeated Hoover’s Bears, 1-0, in a Clyde regional semifinal May 28.
In the circle, Sito finished 27-2 with 312 strikeouts in 186? innings. Even surrendering an earned run in the state final, her ERA was 0.21. She batted .450 for the season with 30 RBIs and six home runs. She also scored 33 times.
Her first homer of the season came in the opener at Magnificat, where there is no outfield fence. Sito crushed a ball that traveled so far she was around third base before an outfielder picked it up. Veteran observers called it perhaps the hardest hit softball they had ever seen.
She also blasted a towering two-run homer on May 24 that defeated Brunswick 2-0 and avenged the Pioneers’ only loss of the regular season. The shot easily cleared the left-center-field fence 220 feet from the plate on Elyria’s varsity diamond at the West High softball complex. Again, spectators said it was one of the hardest-hit balls they had seen.
Among other candidates for the award were Keystone’s Kara Dill, also a junior and a first-team All-Ohio pick again, and North Canton Hoover’s Simpson.
“This is amazing,” said Sito’s dad, Jack. “It’s a great honor and we’re very proud of her. She has a lot of natural talent, but she works very hard to improve and has been since she was 7 or 8 years old. While other kids are at the pool or doing something else on weekends, Tess is playing softball with her travel teams.”
He said that despite the disappointment of the Pioneers’ Saturday night defeat, Tess was working with her weights again Sunday morning.
The Internet profile notes that Sito has a 4.23 grade point average. She is an altar girl at Holy Cross Catholic Church, volunteers in multiple community service programs, serves as a pitching and batting instructor at youth camps and takes part in Youth4Youth, a program dedicated to grooming youth leaders in school and the community. She has committed verbally to Cleveland State for the fall of 2009.
RISE is a sports and active-lifestyles magazine for teens with a circulation of nearly a million. It is distributed directly to some 6,500 high schools nationwide.
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

TESS SITO BY THE NUMBERS

312

Strikeouts in just 1862/3 innings

0.21

Earned run average to go with a 27-2 record

.450

Batting average with 30 RBIs, 33 runs scored and six home runs

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