NC State was the start to a new chapter of sophomore outfielder Angie Rizzi’s life. She is from Tuckahoe, New York, and attended LIU-Brooklyn for her first year of college before transferring to Raleigh to play softball.
With any big change, there are always nerves at first, but Rizzi was able to settle in and adapt to her new situation. She credits her focus for her ability to get things done on and off the field.
“I didn’t know how the girls would treat me, how they would like me, how different it would be from being in New York, being so close to home,” Rizzi said. “That’s probably the hardest thing for me right now is being eight to nine hours away. I do get homesick and I do miss home, but I don’t let that affect me.”
The transition to North Carolina has been smooth and she has found new friends and even new foods to enjoy.
“My friend Sam [Russ] always takes me to Zaxby’s. Always,” Rizzi said. “I fell in love with it the first time. She got me hooked on it and we basically go once every week.”
Rizzi’s collegiate success should come as no surprise since she batted .488 in high school and was named to the Journal News Westchester/Putnam All-Star First Team in 2016, when she hit .582 with nine home runs.
Last season, Rizzi put up impressive stats at LIU-Brooklyn, batting .354 and leading her team with a .416 on-base percentage. Stats were all head coach Shawn Rychcik had to go off of when adding her to the team over the summer.
“We didn’t get a chance to see her because it was really late in the summer,” Rychcik said. “Almost down to days left from when she’d be able to get admitted in so we didn’t actually see her. She came in and we looked at her stats, did quite a few phone calls. … One of my former players, from when I was in Boston, was in the league as a head coach in her league and I said ‘How good is she?’ and she said, ‘She’s a stud.’”
NC State had the opportunity to play LIU-Brooklyn in the Florida Gulf Coast Kickoff Classic in February, where the Pack won 10-1. Rizzi was nervous for the game, but was relieved by her experience of playing her old team.
“In the first inning the coach saw me,” Rizzi said. “He waved at me and at the end of the game he hugged me and said that they miss me and to keep doing my thing and that made me feel a lot better. I didn’t want to end things on a bad note. We respected each other at the end of the day and that’s the biggest thing I wanted, but it was fun to play them. It was fun to see my old teammates and my old coaches.”
The sophomore is batting .261 so far this season, but has battled through a slump in the beginning of the year. Rizzi hasn’t allowed the slow start to get in her head.
“I think one of my strengths is definitely dealing with my slump,” Rizzi said. “I had one already in like the beginning of the year. I told myself not to get frustrated because it is totally different from where I’ve been between the pitching to the atmosphere so I just told myself, do what I do, just make contact and things will happen and it started happening and it finally made me feel better.”
Being a student-athlete comes with its own challenges, but Rizzi described how being a student always comes first. Finding the right balance between her assignments and her leisure is always tricky.
“If I get an assignment, I try to get it done that day or that night in between practices,” Rizzi said. “Between Wednesday practices I get it done, or between class and practice. I get it done. I have one class a day and I get out at 11:30, practice doesn’t start until two or three, so I try to get as much done between then.”
While studying sport management, she hopes to get an internship this summer with some of her friends at a batting cage that teaches baseball and softball. In her free time she’s either at the beach or working out.
The outfielder said she works out every day and that she couldn’t live without it. Her coaches and teammates all seem to admire that work ethic.
“I think she’s been able to become more of a vocal leader,” Rychcik said. “But it all starts for her as someone joining the team new and in the beginning of the year. It comes from just how her work ethic is in the weight room, on the practice field, during our conditioning, so things like that, and I think she’s really proven that to the rest of the team that she’s very committed about what she’s doing.”
Her main goal is focused on the team and bringing success to the program, and in her eyes the young NC State softball team has a bright future ahead of it.
“If I help them win somehow and get to where we want to get, that’s one of my goals,” Rizzi said. “That’s why I transferred to NC State, because I wanted a chance to go to the College World Series and I think if we all get our heads into it and play the way we know how to play, I think we have a really good shot at it.”
