School might have been off last week, but softball certainly wasn’t and while the temperatures were cool, the performances were red hot.
Finding nominees for the Week 4 Longplex Athlete of the Week in Softball wasn’t hard. Getting our list down to five proved to be difficult, but we found a way. Now we’ll step out of the box and let our readers swing the bat and vote for who should be the MVP for the week.
There’s only one way to vote for Week 4 Longplex Athlete of the Week and that’s by reading about the nominees below, then casting your vote in the ballot at the bottom of the page. We do not take email submissions.
You can vote as many times as you’d like between now and when the poll closes Friday. The winner will be announced in next week’s Player of the Week poll.
East Providence fans were a little short trying to get a Townie dub in Week 2, but they weren’t going to fall short this time around.
Any doubt about who was winning this week’s away was answered quickly Marianna Pina got off to a big lead that kept growing as East Providence fans stuffed the ballot box. She finished with nearly 69 percent of the total vote, running past runner-up Molly Ganim of Lincoln. Cranston West’s Nicole Silvestri picked up 10 percent of the vote, with no other player really coming close.
The prize for Longplex Player of the Week is simple – a big bucket of internet clout.
The award is designed to be an interactive way for the state’s most passionate softball communities to show support for their local stars. We want schools, teams and players to create social media campaigns to drive interest and show how much their community cares about the sport and its players.
When a player wins, the community does as well – and that shows us which parts of the state are truly passionate about high school softball.
The first step is easy – shine on the field and do everything possible to help your team win. It’s not about just one big game during the week either, it’s about consistent performances in every game you play.
The second step is having coaches report results to the Providence Journal. Reporting softball is easy, especially with the majority of the state using the GameChanger app. We need the coach of the home team to forward the GameChanger report – box score and recap – to the Journal at PJSports@ProvidenceJournal.com by 9 p.m. on the day of games.
If a program does not have game changer, we will need the home team coach to email the following information – final score and score by innings; three star hitters from the winning team and one or two star players from the losing team; pitching stats, if someone throws a good game; and any pertinent information we can use to write a recap.
That information can also be sent to PJSports@ProvidenceJournal.com
All this information will be used in our daily High School Scoreboard story, where we write about all the games played that day.
So now that you have all the information on the award, check out this week’s nominees and cast your vote for the Longplex Athlete of the Week award.
The freshman had a terrific week for the Bengals, who had their best week of the season. Fredricks drove in two runs and scored another and pitched a complete game in a 13-3 win over Cumberland, then went 2-for-4 with two runs in a tough loss to Smithfield. She closed the week going 2-for-4 with one home run, four RBI and three runs while pitching the Bengals to a win over Ponaganset.
Any questions about who the state’s best pitcher is have been answered after what Jeannenot did this week. The junior pitched the Chargers past La Salle, 3-1, handing the Rams their first loss to an in-state opponent in three years. She followed it with a four-hit, 16-strikeout performance against Prout and then struck out 15 while driving in a run in a 9-3 win over St. Raphael.
The senior outfielder was the first player this season to drive in an earned run against Chariho All-Stater Adriana Jeannenot, hitting the longest homer of the season in the Rams’ loss to the first-place Chargers. She followed it with another home run in La Salle’s win over East Providence then scored once in a blowout win over Cranston West.
Leys had one of the best games in her young career in a week where the Vikings went 2-0. Leys threw an abbreviated no-hitter and drove in two runs in a 15-0 win over Hope, but showed up big against Division II East Greenwich later in the week. Leys threw seven innings of three-hit ball, striking out 13 and drove in one run while scoring one in Rogers’ 3-0 upset win.
It was a big week for the Skippers’ offense and Mezzanotte was right at the center of it. She started going 3-for-4 with three RBI in a win over Division II Kent County, then scored twice and picked up the save in the circle in a win over Moses Brown. Mezzanote hit another home run and drove in two in a win over Portsmouth and scored one run in NK’s win over Coventry.