Katie Rygiel, senior at Hillsborough High School, has officially committed to Ramapo College of New Jersey to continue her academic career and love of softball. The game that won her heart in 4th grade has been her passion for years and Rygiel does not plan on stopping any time soon.

Knowing that you want to play a sport in college causes most students to start the recruiting process much earlier than their non-athlete counterparts. With this comes a lot of work, like creating videos of their best plays, compiling statistics from years of games, and attending recruiting events to impress coaches. Rygiel dove into this process head-on and was quickly in awe of Ramapo’s environment and the people that came with it, like her soon to be coaches and teammates. Fortunately for her, they felt similarly and welcomed her with open arms to their school and D3 team.

Rygiel was always ahead of her age in the game, having made the school’s varsity team as a freshman and being a starter in the game as well. To add, she has been a player on the Top Gun 18U team for 4 years, and her school team was the Somerset County Champions in 2019. However, her love for the sport does not stop with just playing the game. In the process of earning her Gold Award, the highest honor for a Girl Scout, she created a project of her own called Why Softball?; a group to teach young girls how to play, and inspire them to appreciate this sport that could change the way they see themselves. Rygiel knows firsthand the challenges of being a student-athlete and trying to reach a variety of goals at once. She also understands the importance of hard work and dedication if you want to be great at your craft.

For being only a senior, Katie Rygiel has already accomplished so much as an athlete and role model. However, anyone who knows her knows that she still has so much more to do.