For the Falcons, a season to soar

Rejuvenated Bentley squad turns corner

Their team motto is "we believe, you believe."

But after winning just two games last spring, and 15 over the last three years, what the Bentley College women's softball program accomplished this season was almost unbelievable.

Although the Falcons failed to qualify for the Northeast-10 Conference playoffs by a single game, Bentley finished 20-24 (13-15 NE-10), one victory shy of the school record set by the 1989 team that was 21-25. Picked by the conference's coaches to finish 14th in the 15-team NE-10, the Falcons won more games this year than the three previous seasons combined.

Coach Michele DeGregorio, who compiled five 40-win seasons at Merrimack College and guided the Warriors to the Division 2 national championship in 1994, is the architect of the rebuilding plan.

Recruited by Bentley athletic director Bob DeFelice to rejuvenate a program that hasn't posted a winning season since 1987, DeGregorio knew there would be a transition period when she took over as the program's first full-time coach in 2006.

After inheriting a seven-win team, DeGregorio endured two seasons that produced only eight wins combined.

But fueled offensively this spring by Shrewsbury freshman Christine D'Amico, who put together a school-record 21-game hitting streak, DeGregorio and the Falcons are on the right track.

"I had come from a winning atmosphere at Shrewsbury High," said D'Amico, a slugging third baseman on head coach Phil Chevalier's 2006 state championship team. "When we won our opening fall season game against Merrimack, I didn't understand at first why my new teammates were so excited. Then I realized it was a different feeling for them."

DeFelice also sensed a change: "A Bentley softball team was finally feeling good about itself."

DeGregorio said that first fall victory, along with a subsequent one-run loss to Merrimack in which Bentley erased a huge deficit, set the tone.

"It showed they were capable of competing," said DeGregorio, who was honored as the NE-10's Coach of the Year, "and they carried that confidence into our Florida trip this spring."

Confidence was something D'Amico never lacked in high school, when she was a two-year captain and Mid-Wachusett League MVP.

"She hit a triple that tied the state championship game against Dighton-Rehoboth that one-hopped the fence at Worcester State over 200 feet away," recalled Chevalier, who joins DeGregorio in describing D'Amico as one of the most natural hitters they've ever seen.

But there was something unnatural happening early this season for Bentley.

Shifted to second base, the two-time league batting champ in high school was hitting .086 at the end of March and .172 (10 for 58) after 20 games.

"I thought, 'What happened to the girl I watched for two summers?' " said DeGregorio. "But I also knew she had the talent to break out of it. It's a tough adjustment to the college game when you're a freshman. There's not much time between games to straighten yourself out."

D'Amico, one of seven players from last spring's Shrewsbury squad playing softball in college this year, worked on positioning her hands on the bat. The adjustment started to pay dividends when she had four hits in a double-header against Merrimack that offered a preview of her hitting streak.

She ended the season batting .285 with a team-best 2 home runs and 16 extra-base hits. Her streak (.409, 27 for 66) was stopped on the final day of the season by first-place Le Moyne College.

"My coach never lost confidence in me and I never came out of the lineup," said D'Amico, who was a third-team All-NE-10 selection. "I really wasn't aware of the streak until around 14 games, and I didn't pay attention to it because it can definitely get in your head the wrong way."

DeGregorio said D'Amico's focus on the game and not on her stats "is what makes her special. She's an unselfish, team-oriented player and she just killed the ball the second half of the season."

DeGregorio isn't about to label this spring as an unqualified success. There were a handful of games she felt Bentley should have won, and the Falcons were winless in their final seven games (two were one-run losses). But after the reality check of the previous two seasons, she knows how far they've come.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. I knew the situation I was getting into and the team's track record," said DeGregorio.

"Last year, this team looked me in the eye and said they worked as hard as they could, but they didn't. This year they did. But when you miss a playoff spot by one game, there's more hard work to be done."