Chivily To Play Softball In College

Caroline Chivily, four-year varsity starter for the Verona High School softball team, will be playing softball for Hamilton College next fall.

Hamilton, located in upstate New York, is a NCAA Division III school and a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference, a group of schools that are colloquially known as the “Little Ivies”. Softball is one of 29 sports the school offers.

Hamilton was the last school that Chivily visited when looking at colleges, but perhaps only because she realized, once she got there, that “this is the school that I really want to be at.” Though also a standout on the VHS tennis team, Chivily says she has known since her freshman or sophomore year that she wanted to play softball in college. But she also knew that sports had to be alongside a high-level academic program: Chivily, who scored a 5 on the AP Chemistry exam, intends to major in neuroscience.

She had been eyeing Williams College, and when the head softball coach there was tapped by Hamilton this spring, she invited Chivily to come up to the new school for a look. “My coach brought me into Hamilton’s science center labs and they were some of the best labs that I had seen in any of the schools that I had visited,” she said. It probably didn’t hurt that Coach Patricia Cipicchio also had a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience.

“Caroline definitely has what it takes to play at the next level,” says Angela Salisbury, who was Chivily’s coach for the first part of her high school career. “Not only is she a great asset on the field because of her skills, but her work-ethic and desire to succeed will make it easy for her to transition to the college game. Caroline is an all around great kid who knows what it takes to balance academics with athletics. Hamilton made a great recruiting choice with Caroline!”

Photo copyright Andy Yeates. Used by permission.