Ava Cirigliano graduated from Sidney this past spring as one of the most accomplished three-sport student-athletes in school history, a standout in field hockey, basketball and softball.
It’s fitting, then, that her last high school sports season will be capped off with her being named the Daily Star’s 2024 Softball Player of the Year.
Cirigliano did it all for the Sabers in 2024, the team’s first year up in Class B that saw them post a 12-8 record.
She started every game in the circle, posting a 2.96 ERA with 207 strikeouts and 50 walks in more than 132 innings. She finishes her varsity career with a whopping 552 strikeouts.
At the plate, she registered a sparkling .542 batting average with four home runs, 39 RBI, 39 hits and 19 extra-base hits.
All of that was enough to earn Cirigliano a spot on the Class B All-State First Team as well as Midstate Athletic Conference MVP honors.
While she wanted her senior season to be memorable, Cirigliano said she approached it like any other campaign.
“I just played my hardest and made my last season the best one it could be,” she said.
Sidney coach Susanna Johnson said it took some time for Cirigliano to get into softball mode after spending the fall playing field hockey and the winter playing basketball. But once the snow melted, she said the senior standout was all business on the diamond.
“As soon as you get Ava in any practice setting, she turns on to that sport that minute and the people around her and becomes a phenomenal leader and player,” Johnson said.
“It speaks to the amazing athlete that she is that she’s able to turn it on and walk on to any field and make such an immediate impact.”
Cirigliano was a leader on the field no matter which sport she was playing, but Johnson said that leadership was especially critical for softball with the knowledge that she was being relied on in the circle and at the plate every time the Sabers played.
“I saw a kid who took leadership to a whole level for herself,” Johnson said. “She put on the mantle.”
Cirigliano has been one of the top pitchers in the area for the last couple years, but Johnson saw a more efficient and precise hurler in 2024.
“She was way more efficient with batters which is something I’ve been talking about for a couple years with her,” she said. “She’d throw outside of the zone a little bit more to get those swings and misses which was essential for her to get out of those longer at-bats.”
For Cirigliano, the mindset was taking things one pitch at a time.
“I think I worked pretty well on not getting in my head too much, just playing the game and what happens, happens, and you work through it,” she said.
Sidney’s offense as a team improved from last season, something Johnson attributes to Cirigliano’s presence in the lineup and her heightened trust in her teammates’ ability to come through with key hits.
Cirigliano will be attending Misericordia University in the fall to study radiologic technology, and while her softball days are over, she will be playing both field hockey and basketball for the Cougars.
Looking back on her decorated high school career, Cirigliano said the thing she’ll miss the most is the time spent with her teammates.
“I think I had a great connection with all of them,” she said. “We’re all so close and we do everything together.”
Johnson, meanwhile, will remember a leader and role model that other kids could look up to.
“In high school, athletes usually go to the strongest player and they expect them to be the leader, and that person isn’t always a leader because it’s so much pressure,” she said. “Ava really took that pressure on herself this year. She distributes her joy for being an athlete, for playing a sport and she just makes everyone around her feel that as well.”
But more than anything, Johnson said it was Cirigliano’s character that cemented her legacy as one of the Sidney greats.
“She is one of the most joyful human beings I think I’ve ever met, especially for a teenager and especially for working with teenagers all day long,” she said. “She says hi to everybody, everybody she can. She’ll walk down the hallway at school and say hi to somebody. She’ll see somebody in town, say hi to somebody and have a whole conversation.
“An incredibly conscientious player that I don’t think we’ll see replaced in that way anymore.”
Richfield Springs’ Klem named Coach of the Year
In his seventh year as the head softball coach at Richfield Springs, Steve Klem led the Eagles to a 12-3-1 record, a Tri-Valley League title and had them one win away from a sectional title.
For all of that and more, he was named the Daily Star’s 2024 Softball Coach of the Year.
Klem said he and his staff had the expectation that this team could compete for a league title, but the run to the Class D final went above and beyond.
“I thought we were good enough to be there and the expectations from what I saw last year going forward to this year was they can play; they’re good,” he said of his players. “They play as a team. They support each other.”
The Eagles were a well-rounded team, headlined by the stellar pitching of Sophia Spencer, who earned Second Team All-State honors in Class D. Spencer was a key cog in the offense as well along with TVL First Team All-Stars Gabby and Issy Seamon.
“I thought, as an overall team, we were pretty good in all aspects,” Klem said. “We really hounded the girls on different skills and implemented some new programs as far as workouts and stuff like that for the girls and they all bought into it.”
Richfield Springs captured the TVL Championship with a 6-3 win over Edmeston/Morris, then advanced to the finals of the Section IV tournament with victories over Laurens/Milford and Roxbury/Gilboa.
Unfortunately, they ran into a juggernaut Deposit-Hancock squad that took down the Eagles 7-0 en route to a third straight state title.
“We knew we had our work cut out for us when we went down there,” Klem said of the sectional final. “We fell short but I’m very pleased that we made it that far. Every year you have goals and they come around and you never know when they’re gonna come back again.”
Klem said that he hopes the run his team made this spring will inspire those coming up in Richfield Springs’ biddy and modified programs to continue pursuing the sport with the knowledge that they can find similar success.
“I’m hoping this inspires them to come out and play ball with us or go out and play softball,” he said.
Player of the Year: Ava Cirigliano, Sidney, senior
Coach of the Year: Steve Klem, Richfield Springs, 12-3-1
All-State Class B: Ava Cirigliano, Sidney (first team)
All-State Class C: Gabriella Cuozzo, Bainbridge-Guilford (first team); Alessandra Cafasso (Bainbridge-Guilford, third team); Katie Crippen (Cooperstown, fourth team); Alli Ferrara (Delhi, fourth team)
All-State Class D: Sarah Gross, Deposit-Hancock (first team); Olivia Johnston, Deposit-Hancock (first team); Addison Makowski, Deposit-Hancock (first team); Hannah Wist, Edmeston/Morris (second team); Sophia Spencer, Richfield Springs (second team); Amanda Ray, Deposit-Hancock (third team); Abby Russell, Deposit-Hancock (third team)
DAILY STAR SOFTBALL ALL-STARS 2024
Center State Conference: Katie Crippen Cooperstown; Tori France, Cooperstown; Emerson Lippitt, Cooperstown; Grace Sperry, Cooperstown
Delaware League: Natalie Amadon, Charlotte Valley; Josie Butler, Charlotte Valley; Brinlee Wright, Charlotte Valley; Julia Legg, Hunter-Tannersville; Saleema Poladian, Hunter-Tannersville; Olivia Ross, Roxbury/Gilboa; Mikayla Wright, Roxbury/Gilboa; Neleh Brown, South Kortright; Ashtyn Hansen, Windham-Ashland-Jewett; Hannah Tuttle, Windham-Ashland-Jewett
Midstate Athletic Conference: Makenna Schultz, Afton; Alessandra Cafasso, Bainbridge-Guilford; Breanna Casey, Bainbridge-Guilford; Gabriella Cuozzo, Bainbridge-Guilford; Alli Ferrara, Delhi; Sarah Gross, Deposit-Hancock; Olivia Johnston, Deposit-Hancock; Addison Makowski, Deposit-Hancock; Amanda Ray, Deposit-Hancock; Abby Russell, Deposit-Hancock; Cali Knapp, Greene; Abby Yahner, Greene; Kylee Noyes, Harpursville; Lily Marshman, Oxford; Ava Cirigliano, Sidney, Sam Constable, Sidney; Isabella West, Sidney; Avery James, Unatego; Bailey McCoy, Unatego; Hailey Card, Walton/Downsville
Southern Tier Athletic Conference: Logan Jipson, Oneonta; Ivy Tice, Oneonta
Tri-Valley League: Brin Whiteman, CV-S/SS; Sam Coyle, Edmeston/Morris; Hannah Wist, Edmeston/Morris; Bella Garlick, Laurens/Milford; Brooke Mann, Laurens/Milford; Gabby Seamon, Richfield Springs; Issy Seamon, Richfield Springs; Sophia Spencer, Richfield Springs; Amber Burton, Schenevus; Autumn Burton, Schenevus