Softball: Westchester sophomore set to play in All-American game for country's top players

The hype had already been building before Ursuline's Ava Papaleo officially made her varsity debut as an eighth-grader in 2022.

A nationally-ranked prospect within her class, she plays at a level well beyond her years.

Since her first varsity-level swings, Papaleo has only raised the bar with each passing spring. Each year has been better than the last.

Over the last three seasons, she rose up the ranks from all-section to league player of the year, then all-state, and now, All-American.

She was selected to play in the Premier Girls Fastpitch All-American Games in Irvine, California, which will be broadcast on ESPN networks on July 27.

Papaleo will compete in the PGF Futures All-American Game, which highlights the top sophomores and juniors in the country.

"It's truly an honor to be named a PGF All-American," Papaleo said. "It's a little more difficult coming from the Northeast, so I want to thank the coaches from around the country for the recognition. I want to say a big thank you to my coaches, Dave Lotti, John Pirone and Danny Vitulli, for always believing and supporting me so I can achieve my goals."

Papaleo will represent the Class of 2026 sophomores, when they play against the top Class of 2025 juniors. The PGF Futures All-American Game will be featured on ESPN3.

A vast majority of the players selected are from the South or the West Coast. Papaleo hopes to show that New York and the Northeast region can play ball too.

She is just one of two New Yorkers who made the cut, joining Fayetteville-Manilus' Megan Woodridge from Section 3.

"It's a really big opportunity coming from the northeast," Papaleo said. "I want to represent where I'm from and be a role model to younger kids around here."

This past season, Papaleo batted .616, with a .650 on-base percentage and 1.219 slugging percentage. Of her 45 hits, 27 went for extra bases, including 15 doubles, seven triples, and five home runs. She racked up 41 RBIs and stole 14 bases.

During their spring training trip, she showed she was primed for a big junior year. In a seven-game stretch down in Florida, she batted .667, with six doubles, five home runs and 15 RBIs.

"My motivation comes from just being the best I can to help my team perform the best that they can," Papaleo said. "I also just love the opportunity to better myself towards a goal."

A complete package on the field, the standout center fielder was named all-section for the third season in a row and league player of the year for the second year in a row.

She garnered all-state honors for the first time in her career as a freshman last year and is in contention to receive an all-state nod once again when the list is released later this month.

For now, she and her teammates and coaches are relishing in her first All-American distinction.

"I get the opportunity to coach somebody that's on a national-level, but yet is humble and a great teammate," Ursuline coach John Pirone said. "She's like having a coach on the field. We talk a lot about X's and O's and what she has to do. I'm very interested in preparing her in what comes next after high school, but I'm very happy I have two more years with her at Ursuline."

A consensus top-10 prospect in the Class of 2026, Papaleo is currently uncommitted. However, she is expected to have plenty of suitors and official Division I interest once coaches are permitted to communicate with prospective players once Sept. 1 of a recruit's junior year arrives.

She will be in good company, though, as all of the juniors and seniors participating in PGF All-American Games are committed to Power 5 schools.

"She'll definitely be the top player that comes out of this school, I don't think it will be matched," Pirone said. "Even though you can never say never. As far as college goes, she's got a real big internal flame, and I think that when she gets to a school, she's not afraid to work hard both academically and on the softball field. The sky's the limit, and I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up on the Olympic team.

"She checks all of the boxes. I started coaching in 1985, and that makes me dust. Forty years — high school baseball, JV, varsity softball, I've been at Ursuline for 18 years and I had my own travel program for about six — and I would say Ava is No. 1, maybe No. 2, boys or girls."

Papaleo is a softball lifer. Her older siblings also spent plenty of years on the diamond. Her older sister, Tori, played softball at Middlebury, and her older brother, Michael, played baseball at Union College.

It was unsurprising that she followed in their footsteps and quickly fell in love with the game once she started playing at the age of three. It's been an obsession ever since.

"It's pretty amazing — in the offseason, it's almost three and a half hours every day," said her father, Mike Papaleo. "She'll go straight from here, train, workout. She'll do throwing, hitting and do core. Her work ethic has brought her here.

"I'm really proud of her. I think the key to the process is to stay grounded and stay positive, and really be a good teammate. That's a really important thing, because there is some negativity that sometimes creeps into this stuff, and I think as a parent we all have to kind of lead by example."

Papaleo will be excitedly counting down to her trip to California in July. In the meantime, she will be grinding away at the gym and practice field, and keeping busy with a busy slate of travel softball competition.

"I'll be training every day," she said. "I train at Athletes Warehouse with Cassie Reilly-Boccia, who played at Alabama and won a College World Series her senior year. I'll work out, throw, and I'll hit and each day, I'll try to get a little bit better. Work smarter, not always harder."

Follow Eugene Rapay on Twitter at @erapay5 and on Instagram at @byeugenerapay.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Ursuline's Ava Papaleo to play in PGF Softball All-American Games