Sophia DiCocco is named to the national top 30 honorees for the award
As an ace pitcher on the Jumbo softball team, Sophia DiCocco has twice received National Fast-pitch Coaches Association All-America honors. Photo: Courtesy of Tufts Athletics
Jumbo softball pitcher Sophia DiCocco, A24, EG26, has been named to the national top 30 honorees for the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Selected from a record-breaking 627 nominees submitted by member schools, the top 30 honorees are comprised of 10 each from the three NCAA divisions.
Established in 1991, the award recognizes female student-athletes who have completed their undergraduate studies and distinguished themselves in their communities, in athletics, and in academics throughout their college careers. The honorees represent 15 sports and a variety of academic majors.
“These honorees represent the very best of what it means to be a student-athlete, and the character-building potential that is inherent in all athletic pursuits,” said Marion Terenzio, chair of the Woman of the Year Selection Committee and president of SUNY Cobleskill. “They have distinguished themselves among the many thousands of collegiate athletes who find and surpass their limits every day on the journey to becoming their best selves, not just in sport, but in life.”
The NCAA Woman of the Year will be named—and the top 30 will be celebrated—at the NCAA Convention in January in Nashville. The selection committee will determine three honorees from each NCAA division, for a total of nine finalists. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will choose the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year.
As an ace pitcher on head coach Lauren Ebstein’s Jumbo softball team, DiCocco has twice received National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-America honors, along with multiple NFCA All-Region selections and first-team all-conference honors. She also earned a Rawlings Gold Glove Award in two consecutive years.
DiCocco graduated summa cum laude in May as an international relations major and earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-America honors.
At Tufts, DiCocco served as an executive board member of a campus group promoting cancer outreach, organizing events and fundraisers to help further research. She has also tutored and coached middle and high school students.
In the community, she has worked as a horse caretaker for Stirrup Fun Stables Rescue, caring for neglected, abandoned, and abused horses, and as a volunteer for the Borgen Project, advocating for policies to reduce global poverty and increase international affairs funding. She has also organized softball camps as well as games to raise awareness and funds for a variety of causes, and led National Girls & Women in Sports Day activities.
DiCocco will return to the Jumbos this spring for an extra year of eligibility in 2025, while pursuing a master’s degree in innovation and management at the School of Engineering.
