Kristin Gallagher hit a pair of clutch, two-out, 2-RBI singles as the Engineers softball team won the NCAA Division III Softball Championship Medford Regional title with a 4-2 victory against host and three-time defending national champion Tufts on Sunday afternoon at Spicer Field.
See Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria’s congratulatory Twitter message to WPI softball coach Whitney Goldstein, mentioning her grandfather, former Red Sox manager Don Zimmer.
The 22nd-ranked Engineers (38-7) advance to an NCAA Super Regional on Friday against MIT, the Williamstown Regional Champions. WPI will host the best-of-three series on May 20 (4 p.m.) and Saturday (1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m) with the winner headed to Salem, Virginia for the Division III World Series.
BASEBALL DROPS FINALE TO MIT
The second-seeded baseball team struck for seven runs in the opening two innings, highlighted by an Alex Venditti grand slam, as the Boynton Hillers defeated sixth-seeded Elms 10-2 in an ECAC New England Division III semifinal Friday afternoon. WPI fell to NEWMAC rival MIT 9-8 Sunday in the title contest. All seven of WPI’s seniors registered a hit versus Cambridge’s Engineers. WPI, which had won the ECAC title in 2007 and 2009, completes its season with a 27-13 record, the second most victories in the 113-year history of Crimson and Gray baseball.
TRACK & FIELD AT ALL-DIVISIONS CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Women’s Track & Field’s 4 x 800-meter relay team enjoyed a runner-up finish in a school record time, as the team placed 20th and the men were 31st at the two-day NEICAAA All-New England All-Divisions Championships that concluded Saturday at Southern Connecticut State University. Maggie LaRoche, Katie Nugent, Emily Newman and Lea Strangio teamed up to clock a 9:15.54 to reset the standard which was previously 9:22.59. The 4×100-meter relay team Alex Price, Liz Pellegrini, Michelle Gencorelli, Sara Velleca turned in the fifth-place time of 47.68. The time is unofficially 10th on the NCAA Division III Performance List. Velleca earned individual All-New England accolades with an eight-place 25.08 in the 200-meter dash finals, an improvement of .04 on her eighth-place prelim time. On the men’s side, juniors Austin Scott and Brian D’Amore earned All-New England status with eighth-place times of 3:58.11 and 10.91, respectively
