Can Portsmouth win a D-II title? Tuesday's win will help answer that.

Yahoo Sports1h ago11 min readOriginal source →

TL;DR

Portsmouth's softball team showcased their skills with a 6-1 victory over Kent County, signaling their readiness for a D-II title. Key players Barbara Rainey and Mia Ruggieri contributed significantly to the win.

Key points

Portsmouth softball team won 6-1 against Kent County
Barbara Rainey hit a home run in the game
Mia Ruggieri pitched seven innings and also homered
The team has shown significant improvement this season
Upcoming weeks will feature tough competition

WEST WARWICK – The offense is still there. The ace has accepted her role. The defense is vastly improved. The lessons from last year were learned.

And if there’s a time for the Portsmouth softball team to show its ready to win a title, this would be the week to do it.

The Patriots have gotten off to a terrific start this season and on Tuesday, April 28, they put all their skills on display for the world to see. Barbara Rainey opened scoring with a home run, Mia Ruggieri dealt for seven innings and dropped a bomb of her own as Portsmouth took down Kent County, 6-1, and took a step in showing it’s ready to win big.

“This is the first really competitive team that we’ve played and to come out on top feels great,” Rainey said. “I feel like it’s a statement.”

“We know we have a tough week, tough two weeks ahead of us,” Ruggieri said. “It’s good to see a tough team to start it off and get us ready.

“We just wanted to come in here and play as clean as we could and get a win.”

Mia Ruggieri and her Portsmouth teammates celebrated after her home run against Kent County on Tuesday, but the Patriots hope performances like that will help them celebrate at Rhode Island College later this spring.

The victory certainly was tidy, a sign of growth for this group that only graduated one player from last year’s team that made it to Rhode Island College before falling in the losers’ bracket final.

Scoring and pitching weren’t a problem for the Patriots. The defense was and too many times, Portsmouth couldn’t make the most basic of plays. Errors piled on and put the team in a hole the bats couldn’t climb out of.

It looked like the woes would continue after three errors cost the Patriots in their season opener. They survived two in a win over Scituate in the second game of the season.