Dunlap’s Centoni wins 2026 Clutch Sports Media Softball Player of the Year

Sutton Centoni ended a memorable prep career by helping the Dunlap Eagles softball team soar to new heights.

The senior pitcher shut down opponent after opponent, added a key bat in the middle of the lineup — one that delivered a dramatic super-sectional win to send Dunlap to state — and led the Eagles to thrive in one of the state’s top conferences for softball. 

Centoni is Clutch Sports Media’s 2026 Softball Player of the Year after earning Illinois Coaches Association all-state honors for the third consecutive season and leading Dunlap to a 30-10 record and a fourth-place finish at the Class 3A State Finals. 

The Eagles ace, who is signed to the University of Illinois, struck out 279 batters and allowed just 41 walks in 172 innings in the circle. Centoni boasted a 21-5 record and an 0.73 ERA, along with two no-hitters during the season and a perfect game against Limestone in the Class 3A Dunlap Regional title. 

At the plate, her 32 hits and 26 RBIs were among Dunlap’s team leaders as she batted .291 with six doubles, two triples and one home run. Her walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning of the Eagles’ Class 3A super-sectional game against New Lenox Providence Catholic sent the team to their second-ever state appearance and first since 1992. 

Centoni earned Class 3A first team all-state honors from the ICA, first team all-Mid Illini Conference honors and Great Peoria Softball Coaches Association All-Star nods in 2024, 2025 and 2026. She was also a first team selection on Clutch Sports Media’s 2026 Softball All-Area Teams.

Hear more about Centoni’s season and career in our interview with her below. Some answers have been minimally edited for clarity.

What have you been able to reflect and look back on since the season has ended? 

“I'm really grateful and thankful for just the whole season I had with all of the team and they all are seriously my best friends,” Centoni said. “To play and accomplish everything that we did with them was truly a blessing and one of the greatest times that I've ever had. So just looking back, words can't even describe how thankful I am for it and it was just amazing.”

What inspired your love for softball?

“I started right in Dunlap playing rec ball [and] travel ball growing up,” Centoni said. “My mom played softball in college at Eastern [Illinois] so that also sparked it. She’s always just by my side supporting me. She wanted any path that I wanted to take, no matter the sport but she inspired me to start playing. Her and my dad both just continued to grow my love for the sport and help me in any way they could. Just growing up in the Dunlap community, I think playing with everyone that surrounded me really festered the love that I had for it and to be where I am now, it wouldn't be possible without my parents and the community that I had around me.”

Did you have any teammates from this past year who you’ve played with for a long time?

“I think even if it wasn't softball, a lot of the juniors who grew up in the Dunlap travel program, I knew all of them just like passing by and like through the community,” Centoni said. “And then Rachel Mies, who was a senior I graduated with, me and her on the 10U or 12U team together; we were both in the Dunlap program together and Chloe Carmean too was also in the Dunlap program. Just being a public school, all of them I've grown up with since middle school, or even grade school, knowing them and just to finish it out with them was truly a blessing.”

What’s been a moment or game that stood out to you the most?

“I think this past season, definitely the super-sectional game,” Centoni said. “It was just a complete surreal moment, just like the element and being able to do that for my team and just like the celebration afterwards, it was a moment that I will never forget. I never even wanted to leave, truly. Just being able to do that, it was like a movie-type moment, bottom of the seventh inning, runners on, two outs so that for sure will always live in my mind. I would do anything to go back to it.”

What’s a motto or mindset you take when you’re competing?

“I think specifically playing-wise, I try to take one pitch at a time,” Centoni said. “I never want to get too ahead or look too far down the road and I just never want to get caught up within my mind. Just being able to put 110 percent into every single pitch and then in the end knowing that that's going to build up to hopefully take the win or take whatever the goal is that day. But definitely just being where my feet are and absorb the moment and just take it one at a time, one pitch at a time, one swing at a time.”

Aside from winning, what was your favorite memory of the season? 

“This past season, I would definitely say in the dugout [in] our postseason, the chicken that we had,” Centoni said. “That was just very funny, however, that came about. One of our assistant coaches, Coach Munoz, brought that in one day and all of a sudden, it had a sombrero hat and it had a chain on it and it was just like what we were playing for in the dugout and we got to cheer with it. I think that just kept us having fun and especially in those moments where we're working so hard and all of our competitive spirit, [it kept us] knowing that this game is about having fun and it's about playing with the people around you. So I think, as silly and goofy as it was, it definitely helps keep everything in perspective and just let us have fun, even if it was just a plastic chicken. We had a lot of laughs about that.”

What made you want to choose Illinois for college and what are your future goals?

“Currently, right now, my major is undecided, I'm going in and I'm going to take the first year to get gen-eds done and explore interests of study,” Centoni said. “I'm leaning towards possibly speech pathology somewhere within the therapies, possibly a minor in communication just to have that background as well. I think overall for [Illinois], the distance from home I thought was perfect, it's just under two hours. Being able to be close to my family while also having a new experience elsewhere was really big for me and just the culture and being able to have the best of both worlds with both academics and athletics. It’s just such a great environment to be around when I stepped on campus and it was all I was looking for. The coaches as well that I've been able to meet all have been great, and I think just the environment, the players, it all really stood out to me. And of course, being able to stay in state and have my family here too was big.”