Hall of Fame
Sarah Costa Ragusa is an All-American softball player for Shippensburg who played catcher and designated player/hitter from 2002-05. She graduated with the second-most RBIs (151) and second-most doubles (57) in school history.
A career .345 hitter, Ragusa totaled 205 hits and was a three-time All-PSAC and NFCA All-Region performer who started 201 of the team’s 206 games in a run in which the Raiders went 162-44 and won three consecutive PSAC and back-to-back NCAA Mid-Atlantic Region Championships. SU finished fifth at the 2003 NCAA Championships and third at the 2004 NCAA Championships. She hit 17 home runs, a total that ranked fifth all-time in school history at the time of her graduation, and also totaled 84 walks, 335 total bases, and 127 runs scored as one of the premier sluggers in school history.
Ragusa burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2002, earning All-PSAC Eastern Division Second Team honors as a utility player. She hit .318 with a career-high 15 doubles while also totaling 31 RBIs. In a 15-10 win over IUP during the 2002 NCAA East Regional Tournament, a game that propelled the Raiders into the championship game, Ragusa drove in three runs.
As a sophomore, Ragusa became the starting catcher for a Raider team that posted a 37-14 record, won the PSAC Championship, won the Mid-Atlantic Region Championship, and finished in fifth place at the NCAA Championships. She led the team with 10 doubles, delivered a single-season high of six home runs, and had a perfect fielding percentage. Ragusa hit a home run in all three games of the PSAC Tournament, delivered a home run and three RBIs during the Mid-Atlantic Regional to earn 2003 Mid-Atlantic Region All-Tournament Team honors, and delivered an important home run in an NCAA Tournament win over West Florida.
As a junior, Ragusa was named a team captain and rotated as a catcher and designated hitter for a Raider team that posted a 48-6 record. She delivered a .350 batting average and led the team and was ranked second in the PSAC with 46 RBIs and a .594 slugging percentage. Her 19 doubles were a new single-season school record that led the PSAC. She scored the go-ahead run in the Mid-Atlantic Region Championship game and had a hit in three of the four games in the tournament. Ragusa was named to the All-PSAC Eastern Division First Team at catcher, earned NFCA All-Region honors, and was selected to her second straight Mid-Atlantic Region All-Tournament Team.
Ragusa’s best season came as a senior in 2005 in which she earned NFCA All-America Second Team honors and her second All-PSAC First Team honor. She started all 47 games for a Raider team that posted a 42-5 record. As the starting catcher, Ragusa set career highs with 51 RBIs, the third-most in single-season school history, 63 hits, seven triples, 108 total bases, a .453 batting average, and a .777 slugging percentage in addition to tying her career high with six home runs.
After graduating from Shippensburg, Ragusa earned a master’s degree in education from Notre Dame (Baltimore) College in 2013. She played semi-professional softball during the summer of 2005 and went on to become a coach, spending seven years as a high school softball coach and three years as a high school golf coach.
Ragusa is currently a high school special education teacher in the Howard County Public School System. She lives with her husband, James, and the couple are the proud parents of two children, Nicholas and Mia.
