Host: Siena Codekas (’27)
Guests: Gianna Tuso (’26)
Producer: Evelyn Nethers (’29)
Sound Effect: Mauricio Póvoa from Pixabay
Transcript
Siena Codekas: Welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Siena Codekas. Today we’ll be having an exclusive interview with BOHS softball pitcher, Gianna Tuso. We’ll be discussing her recent season and her commitment to play at Division 1 Utah Tech University. Today we are joined by senior Gianna Tuso, who is the Wildcat starting pitcher.
Gianna Tuso: Hi guys.
Siena: We’ll start off by talking about your softball season, which just ended due to a 2-1 loss against Saugus High School in CIF round one. What were some challenges the team faced this season and how did you overcome them?
Gianna: I think some of our challenges kind of started midway through when we started the league and it was a lot of being split apart as a team and not being as cohesive as we were last year. We really had a rough patch when we started league. But I think for us how we overcame them was we just realized that we needed to play for one another and that we were all here for the same reason and that was to have fun. I think the biggest thing was just staying loud in the dugout and chattering. We trolled hardcore a lot of our games, which really kept the other team on their toes and got into their heads that it would be to the point where other teams would tell other people how annoying we were because we got in their heads, but it kind of kept our spirits up and it just gave us that fighting mentality back after we were struggling with being cohesive as one.
Siena: After spending four years on varsity softball, what were some of your favorite memories you made on the team?
Gianna: I think my favorite memories had to start junior year just because I was an upperclassman and so it was a different feeling and I had been in high school and in the varsity softball world for two years already. But I think last year we went back into the Woodbridge tournament, which is like a tournament with a bunch of other schools from South Orange County or Southern California. And one of the games we played Aliso Niguel High School and they’re a really chirpy team, really loud. They have a lot of energy, super scrappy and it was under the lights and we played seven innings. We lost 1-0, but the entire time we were just going back and forth with their team being loud and chattering and it really just showed why I loved the game of softball and it showed how cohesive our team was then. And I think this year we went to Laughlin for the first time and that was a huge experience for all of us. We really got to team bond. We all hung out in all the rooms. We just had fun. Because a lot of these girls I’ve been playing with since I was like in 6U, so about five years old. So just like having these last moments with them and really being able to go out and compete in the sport we love and playing against them, but also having the time with them in the hotel room when we were going around the hotel. We would go at midnight and go down to the McDonald’s just to get ice cream because we could as a team and it was just like those memories will like last forever and yeah the games will stay with me, but it’s what we did before the games and after the games that will really like leave an impact on my life.
Siena: Do you think that like the team’s energy and stuff like at Laughlin impacted the way you performed on the field during those games?
Gianna: 100%. I think Laughlin we faced a lot of really big teams, like really good high school teams and we didn’t win all those games, but we had so much fun. We ended up placing I think top 20. We ended up placing top 20 and everyone who went to that tournament like didn’t think we were going to do it. And I feel like we just had a fight inside of us that just kept us going. Even when we were down against the team, we just kept our energy high because a lot of us seniors, like we’re never going to go back and do that again. So we might as well go out with a bang.
Siena: How has softball played a role in your life?
Gianna: For me softball has been like an escape from things. It really has been, it’s changed me a lot and helped me grow in a lot of aspects in my leadership qualities, in my mental struggles. It’s helped me overcome a lot of battles and like being a pitcher and being the center of the attention and in charge of the pace of the game really puts a lot of weights on someone’s shoulders and being able softball’s taught me how to like handle those pressures and how to like overcome those obstacles independently by trusting on other people. And I think softball’s gotten me to where I am as a person, as a player, as a friend, and it’s given me so many memories. Now I’m going to continue on to the division 1 level and I wouldn’t be going there if it wasn’t for softball and I wouldn’t want to do what I wanted to do now if it weren’t for softball and the people who impacted me along my journey, like my grandpa and my mom and like all my amazing coaches, like they all, like softball has helped me find like my group of people that I will stick by the side for the rest of my life.
Siena: Who have been your biggest supporters in your family or your friends or?
Gianna: I think my biggest supporter in my family is my mom and my dad. My mom wakes up at 6 AM, takes me to my games, she’ll drive me home after a late game at 11 o’clock at night. Even on days where she’s not home and I have to be up at six to go to the field and I’m driving myself, my mom’s awake making sure I’m out there. She’s always watching the games, giving me feedback and sometimes her criticism, like it’s not my favorite thing, but like she’s my number one supporter and she always wants what’s best for me. She was a big part of my recruiting process because she helped me send out my emails, like format my emails and if I was stressed or under pressure, she’s like, “Hey, let me help you out with this. ” And she’s the reason I’m going where I am. And I think another person would be my grandpa who passed away when I was in fourth grade, but his whole legacy, he was a softball coach, he was a umpire for my mom and my aunt and it’s just been like a family tradition and he loved going to my games no matter what his health conditions were. He was always there and when he passed away before the day before I had a game and the first thing he said when he saw me, like he was sick in bed and the first thing he asked was how my game went. So like he played such an important life and actually in college I’m going to be wearing his number for his birthday. So I’m going to be wearing number 28, hopefully if I get it, but that’s just to like, because my mom and my aunt never went to college for softball because they had to take care of my grandpa when he got sick. So I feel like I’m finishing the legacy and keeping him in remembrance because if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have gotten into the sport.
Siena: What made you decide to pursue softball in college and why did you choose Utah Tech?
Gianna: I feel like for every little kid like playing softball at the division one level is like a big dream. They call it the 1%. So September 1 is when you get your email is when September 1 of your junior year is when colleges can offer you a visit or a scholarship and can start talking to you. So for my September 1, I got two offers or two coaches contacted me, the coach from Cornell and the coach from Wagner, which is a school in New York, which I was originally committed to and they say that out of the 1% who get the emails, 1% commit to that school. So after like already being in the 1% was like such a big thing for me because I worked so hard and I was like, I really hit a rough patch right before September 1 of my junior year and I was really contemplating if softball was what I wanted to do because I just wasn’t on the right team. I wasn’t surrounded by the right girls because that’s a really big thing is surrounded by the right people. But like once I got those emails and I switched my teams and I found my love for softball again, it was completely different. So I committed, I went on my visit to Wagner because I honestly thought it was my only option at that point and after Wagner, I absolutely loved New York because New York is just a gorgeous place and I loved the campus because it was right outside the big city, but like the campus was like in the woods and it was like an old time like Gilmore girls feel and so I was like, “I love this school.” The girls I met were really nice, but I could tell there wasn’t a huge, big team camaraderie and there was like a lot of like drama and like a lot of people looked like they didn’t like each other and for me having a support system was super big. I committed there and then I was really having a lot of doubts my summer going into my senior year and I just didn’t know if that was the right place for me. I was exceeding in softball above what I could do because I was just proving myself wrong constantly and I was thinking, “Well, what if there’s better out there for me? ” So I decided to decommit from Wagner and just put everything in God’s hands and see where I was going to go and Utah Tech really liked me at our big national tournament and so I talked to the coach and I committed before I went out to the school because the coach was just so kind and so like rightfully bound in what he wanted to do and how he wanted the program and then I went out on my visit and Utah is completely different from New York, like completely different. It’s rural, like nothing’s there super, there’s like Red Rocks, but it’s absolutely gorgeous desert part where I’m going and it’s much closer to home, much closer to home and I just saw the team chemistry and how much they all cared for each other and I was like, “This is the place I want to be at and the school is so nice. They’re going to let me take my courses I want for biomedicine so I’m going to be able to take my biomed courses while Wagner wasn’t sure if I could take them or not. ” And so just having these opportunities has really like changed my life and being able to play softball continuously has been like, I’m so grateful for it because like I broke my hand from flag football senior year over the fall and I was out for six months like I came back a week before softball season started and those six months was just such a reflection on like without softball like having my weekends free was nice for the first month, but after that I just had like an empty void and softball was what it was because softball was such a big part of me.
Siena: Thank you for joining me today. I really appreciated all of your insight and best of luck at Utah Tech.
Gianna: Thank you so much for having me.
Siena: That wraps up today’s episode. A huge thank you to Gianna Tuso for joining us and sharing her experiences as a Wildcat athlete and future Division I softball player. We wish her the best of luck at Utah Tech and can’t wait to see what she accomplishes next. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
