Former Fairfield Ludlowe star Brenna Martini became the first player to ever be named Northeast-10 Player of the Year in three straight seasons and former Wilton star Lizette Roman-Johnston also concluded an outstanding collegiate career. Those were two of the major highlights of former FCIAC softball players who played for their college programs this past spring.
Martini is one of the greatest softball players in Adelph University history and Roman-Johnston had a great senior season at Skidmore.
Here are some statistics and highlights of those two along with many former FCIAC stars who are listed underneath the high schools they attended, which are listed in alphabetical order. Names of the players included here were provided by the coaches from FCIAC teams.
Click the player names for bios from their college websites.
Danbury
Melissa Jakubowski was a 5-foot-6 sophomore outfielder who started in 27 games for the University of New England and had a .253 batting average (19-for-75).
Julia Lener was a sophomore who had a redshirt season this past spring at at Southern Connecticut State University. She is a shortstop who saw action in 20 games as a freshman in 2017.
Ludlowe
Brenna Martini had an excellent year and was selected to the 2018 NFCA All-American Second Team as a 5-foot-6 senior corner infielder for Adelphi University. Martini started in all 54 games for 32-21-1 Adelphi, she had 61 hits in 164 at-bats for a team-high .372 batting average and she also led the team with 42 RBIs and 13 home runs.
She cemented her legacy as one of the best players in the program’s history, holding nearly all of the school’s career offensive records. Martini ended her career with a .412 batting average, 254 hits, 54 home runs and 227 RBIs and became the first player to ever be named Northeast-10 Player of the Year in three straight seasons. She made NE-10 All-Conference First team in 2015, 2016, 1017 and 2018.
This past senior season Martini was the NE-10 leader in walks, total bases, on-base percentage and slugging percentage while ranking second in home runs, third in RBIs and fifth in average.
Greenwich
Rebecca DeCarlo had a strong senior season as a 5-foot-4 senior shortstop for Fairleigh Dickinson to wrap up a very good career. DeCarlo started 37 games, she had 35 hits in 119 at-bats for a .294 batting average with 23 RBIs and a very good .908 fielding percentage. Last year DeCarlo batted .306 (30-for-98) and for her career she started in 139 games, batted .299 (126-for-421) and had a .888 fielding percentage.
Erin Ferguson started all 30 games and had a very good year as a 5-foot-4 senior catcher/infielder for 16-14 Ohio Wesleyan. She had a .304 batting average with 31 hits in 102 at-bats. She had a team-high eight doubles, was second on the team with 29 RBIs and tied for second with three home runs.
Colleen Bennett was a 5-foot-8 junior middle infielder for the who had a .184 batting average (9-for-49) while playing in 24 games for the University of Chicago. Last year Bennett batted .285 (29-for-107) with 16 RBIs and 11 stolen bases in 40 games and two years ago she batted .308 (24-for-78) in 35 games with 15 RBIs and seven stolen bases so she has a career batting average of .265 (62-for-234) in 99 games.
Norwalk
Tori Dugan and Nicole Bonanni were teammates who are both versatile enough to have been listed as middle infielder/outfielder on the Western Connecticut State University team roster.
Dugan completed her career with a very good senior year. She was second on the team with her .328 batting average (41-for-125) and the team leader with 24 stolen bases. As a junior Dugan batted .358 and was named to the All-Little East Conference Second Team.
Bonanni was a backup who had eight hits in 43 at-bats for a .186 average.
Ridgefield
Kailey Westington was a freshman pitcher/utility player for Southern Connecticut State University. She started in 15 of 29 games. Westington made eight appearances on the mound, including three starting assignments, and at the plate she had eight hits, seven runs scored, three RBIs and a .174 batting average.
Stamford
Lauren O’Neill was a 5-foot-7 freshman who had a very good rookie season for Adelphi. She started all 54 games in right field and had a .307 batting average with 46 hits, including three doubles and three triples. O’Neill was fifth on the team with 26 runs scored, she tied for third on the team with 14 multi-hit games and drove in 16 runs.
Allie Buzzeo had a solid rookie season as a 5-foot-4 freshman outfielder for Western New England. Buzzeo played in 33 games and had a .293 batting average (27-for-93).
Maria Zecena was a sophomore outfielder who started in 30 of the 37 games she played for Southern Connecticut State University and batted .176 with 12 hits, eight runs scored and four RBIs.
St. Joseph
Victoria Ceballos was a senior pitcher/first baseman for Southern Connecticut State University. Ceballos had four hits in 35 at-bats and drove in seven runs at the plate while on the mound she had a 3-7 record with a 3.03 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 59.1 innings.
Trumbull
Kristine Liptack was a 5-foot-9 senior first baseman who was voted the team MVP for the University of New Haven. Liptack started in all 42 games she played in, was third on the team with her .299 batting average (38-for-127) and second on the team with 24 RBIs.
Jill O’Connell was a 5-foot-7 sophomore utility player who played in four games for Western Connecticut State University.
Wilton
Lizette Roman-Johnston had an excellent season with a .415 batting average with 56 hits in135 at-bats as a 6-foot senior infielder for Skidmore. She was selected to the NFCA All-Northeast Region First Team and All-Liberty League First Team.
Roman-Johnston really heated up down the stretch has she hit safely in eight of the last nine games of the season and had a sizzling .500 batting average (16-for-32). This year she also contributed 23 RBIs, 11 doubles and four home runs.
Roman-Johnston batted .333 in 2015, she did not play in 2016, in 2017 she batted .354 and she finished her career with a .369 batting average (141-for-382) and 54 RBIs.
