Posted: May 01, 2010
BEVERLY, Mass. – The Endicott College softball team captured its eighth-straight The Commonwealth Coast Conference Championship with a 7-1 victory over Western New England College on Saturday afternoon in Beverly, Mass. The Gulls (28-10-1) have earned the automatic qualifier into the NCAA Tournament and will await word on who they will face in the coming weeks.
\#Jenna Bortolotti\# (Milton, Mass.) went seven innings, giving up only five hits and one earned run for her 20th win of the season.
The Gulls got on the board first in the bottom of the first when \#Ashley Wright\# (Merrimack, N.H.) hit a towering homerun over the fence in leftfield to give the Gulls a 1-0 lead. Endicott added two more in the bottom of the second as \#Hayley Hovhanessian\# (Farmington, Conn.) placed a perfect bunt down the first baseline, allowing \#Megan Downey\# (Ballston Lake, N.Y.) to score from third. \#Nicole Devlin\# (Dudley, Mass.) laced an RBI double to left centerfield in the next at-bat and pushed the EC lead to 3-0.
WNEC (26-19-1) made some noise in their half of the fourth as the Golden Bears loaded the bases on Bortolotti. Kate Post (Bridgewater, Mass.) drove in a run with an RBI single but that would be all Western New England would get as Bortolotti forced Christina Farese (Marlborough, Mass.) into a groundout and then struck out Ashley Stolarik (Wilbraham, Mass.) to end the threat.
Endicott scored another run in the fourth and then added three more in the fifth to round out the scoring. \#Sarah Spaziano\# (Norton, Mass.), \#Katherine McGann\# (Topsfield, Mass.) and \#Megan Downey\# (Ballston Lake, N.Y.) each added RBI singles in the inning.
Following the fourth inning, Bortolotti settled down, giving up only one hit through the fifth and sixth innings. In the seventh, Post led off the inning with a single but Bortolotti forced three straight groundouts to end the inning and send the Gulls home with their eighth-straight TCCC crown.
\#Sarah Spaziano\# led the attack for the Gulls, going a perfect 3-for-3 at the dish with an RBI and two runs scored. \#Katherine McGann\# also had a multi-hit day with her 2-for-3 performance. Six different Endicott players drove in a run including Downey, Hovhanessian, Devlin and Wright.
Kate Post led the Golden Bears, going 2-for-3 with an RBI. Lauren Arsenault (Fitchburg, Mass.), Trish Breault (Millville, Mass.), and Elyse Gauvin (Swansea, Mass.) added the three other hits for WNEC. Sarah Lempicki (Plantsville, Conn.) suffered the setback, lasting only 3.2 innings while giving up six hits and four runs (one earned). Rachelle Fecteau (East Lyme, Conn.) replaced Lempicki and only went 0.1 innings while giving up two hits and three earned runs. Victoria Lospinuso (West Islip, N.Y.) was effective in relief, allowing only one hit over two innings.
The Blue and Green now await word on where they will travel to for the NCAA Tournament, which begins on the May 13th. Western New England hopes to grab an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
