SPORTS

College Notes: West duo makes good 1st impression

Posted 3/23/22

By BRENDEN SOARES

For Cranston natives Olivia Conti and Brenna Whittaker, the season-opening trip to Florida for the Emmanuel softball team was filled with personal success, even though the Saints …

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SPORTS

College Notes: West duo makes good 1st impression

Posted

By BRENDEN SOARES

For Cranston natives Olivia Conti and Brenna Whittaker, the season-opening trip to Florida for the Emmanuel softball team was filled with personal success, even though the Saints could only muster a 1-6 record during their time in the sun.

Conti picked up where she left off last spring as one of her team’s leading lights inside the batter’s box, posting a team-high .565 slugging percentage with four extra-base hits while hitting at a .304 clip.

The sophomore infielder started the campaign in fine fashion, hitting safely in Emmanuel’s first three games, including a 3-for-4 performance in the Saints’ only win, a 10-3 decision over Ohio Northern on March 7.

All of Conti’s hits went for extra bases, lacing doubles in the fourth and sixth innings before punctuating her day against the Polar Bears with a solo home run that landed over the center field fence during the Emmanuel half of the seventh.

She then went quiet, going 0-for-3 in each of the following three contests for the Saints, before knocking a single in the final tilt of Emmanuel’s tour on March 11, one of only two hits for the Saints in a 7-2 defeat to Swarthmore.

Shifting over to the circle, Whittaker got the starting nod in three of the seven games, with the Cranston West product earning credit for the win in the aforementioned triumph over Ohio Northern.

It was the first start at the collegiate level for the ex-Falcon, who scattered seven hits and struck out one in 5.2 innings before giving way to Tianna Dawe, with the junior scooping up the remaining outs to preserve the victory for Emmanuel.

Whittaker went on to hurl at least five frames in her other appearances, picking up a pair of strikeouts in a 5.2 inning outing against Hiram and going five-plus without allowing a walk versus Swarthmore before leaving the game with the score tied at two apiece.

The Saints will have plenty of opportunities to improve their mark this week, as they will play a trio of doubleheaders, starting tomorrow on the road versus Emerson, followed by home meetings with Wentworth on Thursday and Framingham State two days later.

Ex-Falcon Nicolas Fortes has played in three of the first eight games of the season for Johnson & Wales, clubbing a solo home run in the Wildcats’ first win of the spring, a 10-0 triumph over SUNY-Cortland last Friday ... Cranston native and Prout product Mike Bogosian went 2-for-2 and drove home a pair of runs for Roger Williams on Friday as the Hawks pasted Maine-Farmington 20-3 in the first game of the teams’ doubleheader ... Cranston West alumna Sophia DiPippo has made seven appearances inside the circle for Saint Anselm, recording ten strikeouts in 28 innings of work for the Hawks.

West, softball

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