Untold Athletes: Samantha Troetti - Softball

Samantha Troetti is a senior from Norwalk, Conn. and is majoring in athletic training. Troetti is a catcher/utility player for the softball program and serves as a Bombers Lead co-chair within SAAC. As part of Bomber Leads, Troetti oversees the creation, implementation, and continuing of community service, community engagement, and student-athlete welfare initiatives.

I was first introduced to softball when I was five years old. I was watching my older sister learn how to play in our backyard. That is the place where everything started. I learned how to throw, hit and catch in that backyard. That backyard has seen me grow both physically and mentally over the past 16 years. That backyard has seen it all from triumphs to breakdowns. Being in my backyard with my dad is where my passion for softball started. I owe my success to that space and that man. No matter how old we both get we are always down to go out and have a catch. I don’t think my parents and I would be as close as we are today if it wasn’t for softball. No matter how old, we always have something to talk about and reminisce on. 

Softball has never come easy to me and it is not something that I was naturally gifted in.  If you told me I was going to be a senior on the Ithaca softball team I would not have believed you.  It took a lot of sacrifice, hard work, blood, sweat and tears to get where I am today. As of the Fall going into my senior year of high school, I would have told you I was going to go to another college to play field hockey and study athletic training. Ithaca College was my dream school but it was also my athletic reach school.  Coach Pallozzi told me that it would be best if I looked elsewhere. When Coach told me that I wasn't good enough, a switch flipped in me and I did a complete 180, and I changed my habits as a player and as a person. I had many mental and physical blocks to overcome. And I did it, I was playing the best softball that I had ever played, I was getting looked at by other coaches and I felt great. But there was always that thought in the back of my head telling me that I still wasn’t good enough.  But it was the call from Coach Olsen in September of my senior year of high school, at 9:00 o'clock at night, telling me that they had changed their mind, and how much they wanted me to come to Ithaca, that made me realize I was good enough.

In my eyes the game of softball comes down to one thing, your mental toughness. You can be the best player on the field but if you don’t believe it and feel it deep within yourself then you won’t be able to perform at your best. If you have any bit of self-doubt or a negative thought in your head it will eat you up if you are not able to shut it out. I have been tested time and time again by this game and I think that’s why I love it so much. If you don’t want the ball, I can guarantee that you are going to get it. In the same breath, if you make a mistake, you will get the opportunity to fix it. This game has the ability to build you up so high and fill you with confidence and the next inning take it all back. The game of softball is not for the weakhearted and anyone who has made it this far in their career has to be in love with it or they wouldn’t put up with it for so long. 

There is something so unique about the Ithaca softball team that I have never felt on a team before. It’s the feeling of unconditional love and support, no matter what I do I know that I have not just my current teammates but all of our alumni behind me. I know that if I need anything at all that everyone would drop what they are doing and come assist me. Anytime that we are all together you can feel the love that we have for each other and the love that we have together. 

Covid-19 hit our team quite hard this past March. We were on our spring trip in Florida and between one of our doubleheaders, we got the news that our season had been cancelled. We were all heartbroken, it was news that we were expecting but news that we still didn’t want to hear. When we first got the news, we all thought about our own seniors and our new coaching staff. This was supposed to be their breakout season, their time to shine and it was taken away. At first, I didn’t cry, I didn’t cry later that night or when we got back to Ithaca. It was when I was home in Connecticut with my parents when it all hit me. I broke down, I thought to myself “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be on Doris Kostrinsky Field with my teammates.” Throughout quarantine we met as a team with our coaches and talked about the impact that this had on us and how we are going to go forward. We will never take a game, a practice or a simple team meeting for granted ever again. People always say play like it’s your last time playing because you don’t know when it’s going to be.