Polito Named To All-Big Ten Team
May 11, 2007 | Softball
Wisconsin senior outfielder Samantha Polito (Stevens Point, Wis.) has been named to the All-Big Ten team as announced Thursday by the league office. This is the first All-Big Ten selection for Polito, who started all 203 games of her four-year career for the Badgers.
Polito, a third-team selection, became Wisconsin's all-time leading scorer and tied the school record for career hits this season. She scored 139 runs and had 203 hits in her career.
A school-record 16-game hitting streak aided Polito to a .377 average in 2007, the third-highest mark in program history. Her 39 runs scored ranked 10th in the Big Ten and it tied a UW single-season record. Polito also set school records for runs per game (0.83) and hits per game (1.21) this season.
In Big Ten play, Polito hit a team-best .389 with 16 runs scored in 18 games. She scored the second-most runs in league play and her 21 hits ranked fourth.
The all-conference honorees were nominated and selected by Big Ten coaches, who also selected a player of the year (Northwestern's Garland Cooper), a pitcher of the year (NU's Eileen Canney), a freshman of the year (NU's Nicole Pauly) and a coach of the year (Ohio State's Linda Kalafatis).
In addition, each school had one student-athlete chosen for a Big Ten Sportsmanship Award, with sophomore Valyncia Raphael being Wisconsin's selection.
