School: Central Bucks South
Basketball, Softball
Favorite athlete: My favorite athlete would have to be Mike Vick because I like how he plays, and he plays for the Eagles!
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles - I'm always watching the games on Sundays and am always into the games.
Favorite memory competing in sports: Last year when I played softball during the Hatboro game for the district championship. Tons of people were there, and it was just an exciting game right until the last inning.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: The funniest thing would have to be during our East basketball game last year. Our team wasn't really fond of one of the girls on the other team, and during the fourth quarter, she tried fighting with one of our teammates. We were all in shock but laughed about it at the end of the game.
Music on iPod: The music on my iPod mostly consists of Taylor Swift, but other than that, it's upbeat music that I like to listen to before most of my games.
Future plans: I plan on going to college and becoming a nurse.
Words to live by: 'Live every day like it's your last.'
One goal before turning 30: Go to the Bahamas. Many of my friends have gone, and I just want to see if it's as great as everyone makes it seem to be.
One thing people don't know about you: When it comes to public speaking or presentations, I am very shy and get very nervous, but other than that I am a very outgoing and not shy person to be around.
Tyler Vitelli, according to her coach, doesn’t have a stop button.
“She has so much energy, and she brings an intensity and competitiveness that most players don’t have,” Central Bucks South basketball coach Beth Mattern said of her senior captain. “She has an internal force.
“She’s normally playing the opposing team’s best player or guard, someone we want to shut down and limit their ball handling. She’s so competitive and doesn’t want them to do what they want to do. She’s a sparkplug in what we do defensively.
“I see a lot of dedication and intensity in all my players, but it starts with the first five on the court, and it starts with the people who are the captains and leaders. Tyler definitely sets that example.”
Off the court, the South senior, who was the starting centerfielder on last year’s state runner-up softball team, is at ease in any situation, and she makes friends easily. Some of the credit for that goes to her upbringing in a military family.
Home to Vitelli has been California – where she was born, Georgia, Maryland and, most recently, Hawaii before settling in this area in ninth grade.
“I think that impacted me very positively,” she said. “I became the person I am today.
“I’m more outgoing. I like to meet new people – I’m not shy when it comes to meeting new people.”
Making the moves easier for Vitelli, the oldest of four siblings, was the fact that her sister Madi is just one year younger.
“Because my sister and I are really close in age – we kind of are best friends, so it wasn’t that bad to move since I had her,” Vitelli said. “I feel if I moved now – I have really close friends, so I think it would be more traumatic than it was to make friends when I was younger when real close friends haven’t been made.”
It’s no exaggeration when the South senior says she has friends around the world.
“It was a lot of fun,” Vitelli said. “Hawaii was a really good experience – it was kind of like a vacation all the time.
“I enjoyed it, but now that I’m older, I wouldn’t want to leave the friends I’ve made here. I don’t want to move now.”
Vitelli began playing sports when she was six years old, competing in soccer, basketball and softball.
“Once I got to middle school, my parents said I had to choose two since it was kind of hectic with the schedules,” she said. “I picked softball and basketball.”
Since travel teams were not an option in Hawaii, Vitelli, in addition to playing for her school team, played for a boys’ and girls’ club, joining the boys’ teams for flag football, baseball and soccer.
Things changed when her family returned to Pennsylvania. Vitelli immediately joined her uncle’s travel softball team. It wasn’t long, however, before she was looking for something more competitive and joined the highly regarded Northampton Lightning.
Because of distance and travel time, Vitelli switched to the Hatboro-Horsham Banshees two years ago. At the end of this past summer, she opted to walk away from the rigorous travel circuit.
“I was tired out, worn out,” she said. “You play tournaments every weekend all summer. You go away for nationals. All during fall you have tournaments. We have workouts two days a week during the winter. We have tournaments in the spring.
“It’s an ongoing process. It’s long.”
Vitelli leaves the travel circuit with many fond memories.
“The girls on my team were really good friends of mine, and I was close with them,” she said. “I enjoyed going to different states and playing in tournaments, but it was hard playing three games a day, not being able to go to the beach like all my other friends.”
Last spring, Vitelli played center field for a South softball team that captured both conference and district titles and was just one win away from a state title.
“It was a really good group of girls, and I had a lot of fun,” she said.
Whether or not she will play softball this spring is a question Vitelli has not answered definitively just yet.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I have so many decisions to make.”
For Vitelli, playing basketball is a breath of fresh air, a diversion, a break from the rigors of softball.
“Basketball is a lot of fun for me,” she said. “I enjoy staying after school and practicing. I think because I haven’t played it my whole life and been on a travel team – I enjoy it twice as much because I’m not overdoing it. I’m not playing as much.
“Playing for school, playing with this group of girls and playing for my coach – I just really enjoy it. I enjoy coming out on top and having a really good game.”
Vitelli is an eager student of the game.
“When you’re instructing and giving feedback, when we’re talking about what we’re going to do in a game or practice, she doesn’t break eye contact and will listen to you – okay, let’s do it,” Mattern said. “She gets it, and she never stops.
“She wants to be better, she wants the team to be better, and it’s that kind of competitiveness that keeps her driven.”
Vitelli is capable of putting up points, but she also is the undisputed defensive catalyst of a Titan squad that prides itself on its defense. Mattern points to the Titans’ 36-32 come-from-behind win over North Penn as a game that underscored Vitelli’s defensive prowess.
“Her defense – although a lot of it won’t show up in the stats, she just wears down the opposing guards,” Mattern said. “She did a nice job really wearing them down in the North Penn game, and she’s done that a lot.
“It’s one of the things that sparks us. We work hard on defense because we struggle offensively, and that’s what won us that game.”
Vitelli caught the eye of the Widener basketball coach at the North Penn game, and she has already been accepted the Chester County university. She hopes to attend either Widener or Temple but would not play sports if she enrolled at Temple.
“Temple is my school to go to just to have the college experience,” she said.
Vitelli’s graduation project shadowing an oncology nurse convinced the South senior that she wanted to pursue a career in nursing.
“I really enjoyed the atmosphere and how you can connect to the patients,” she said. “I actually enjoyed that, and I always liked helping people. That’s my number one reason why I’m so interested in that.”
For now, she is enjoying her final high school basketball season where she is teammates with her sister Madi.
“Between the two of them, one of them is usually in the top two in scoring, but Tyler is a team first player,” Mattern said. “Tyler is a good, good kid. She’s always smiling, always happy. She’s a hard worker in the classroom. She’s just generally happy. Everyone who comes in contact with her enjoys her.”
And that hasn’t changed no matter which state Vitelli called home.
