Spring athletes are the ignored stepchildren in the college sports family here in the Northeast.
But first, why call them spring sports? Bryant played its first baseball game on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, at Davidson in North Carolina. Last time I checked, February was still winter.
Second, when spring weather finally arrives in early May, the regular season is ending. The grass may be a vibrant green, the temperature in the 70s and flowers in bloom, but college baseball players are putting their gloves away unless they are in a conference or NCAA tournament. Think about that for a minute and tell me it makes sense.
Still, winter/spring teams play through cold weather before sparse crowds. When they win a championship here, we should cheer them as we would football and basketball champs.
So how about an ovation for the Ivy League softball champions from Brown University? The Bears (33-15) won their first Ivy title last weekend, beating the regular-season champion Princeton twice, and earned a spot in the NCAA Division I Tournament for only the second time in program history. The 1997 team was the first. The 33 victories tied the 1991 team for the most in Brown history.
Catcher Laurel Moody, the unanimous Ivy League player of the year, and first-team All-Ivy pitcher Alexis Guevara led the Bears on the field, but the best story on this team is first-year head coach Mary Holt-Kelsch. She is as Providence as they come.
“I grew up in Mount Pleasant, right off Chalkstone Avenue. My dad grew up in Smith Hill. I’m a legitimate born-and-raised Rhode Islander. I know all about coffee milk,” she said with a laugh when we spoke Monday afternoon.
Her journey from Mount Pleasant to College Hill was a lot more interesting than simply making her way across town. She played infield for the La Salle Academy softball team — and put the shot for the track team. She also played for a travel softball team and got her first big break during a tournament in Florida, her senior year. She played well and received a telephone call that went something like this.
“Hello, Mary. This is Coach Karen Linder from Kent State.”
“Kent State? Where’s that?”
“A little south of Cleveland.”
Mary chuckled at the memory and said, “I was a little late to the recruiting process.”
Twenty-four hours later, she flew to Cleveland, visited Kent State and fell in love with the school.
“I wanted to be part of a championship program. Kent State was the best in the MAC (Mid-American Conference). I played a lot of good softball for a great coach,” she said. She was a starter at third base and shortstop for three years. Kent State won a regular-season title and qualified for the MAC tournament during her stint on the team, but did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Holt-Kelsch graduated in 2013 and returned to Providence, unsure of her future. She was an instructor at Planet Fastpitch in Uxbridge, Mass., and was considering the Providence Police Department or the Rhode Island State Police as possible careers when she received another life-changing call. Jexx Varner, head coach at Lafayette College and former assistant at Kent State, invited her to join his Division I staff in 2014.
“I wanted to give the coaching thing a go,” Holt-Kelsch said. “I had coached travel ball a little [New England Phoenix Gold] and knew I liked coaching.”
She coached at Lafayette for two seasons until Varner put her in contact with URI coach Bridget Hurlman. Holt-Kelsch joined the Rhody staff in the summer of 2015.
“You know Rhode Islanders. We go away but always come home,” she said with a laugh.
She was promoted to associate head coach in 2019 and left when URI changed head coaches after the 2021 season.
“I thought I wouldn’t coach anymore,” she told me. She returned to Planet Fastpitch and was considering her next move when she received a text message from out of left field. Frank Holbrook, the baseball coach at Rhode Island College at the time and a classmate at La Salle, told her the softball position had just opened.
Holt-Kelsch hesitated. Holbrook persisted. Holt-Kelsch interviewed, received an offer and decided RIC “maybe would be a good place to try being a head coach.”
The Division III Anchorwomen won 12 games in 2022 and 19 in 2023. They were 31-12 in 2024.
Last summer the Brown job opened. Richard Fonseca, an assistant at RIC, encouraged her to apply.
Once again, Holt-Kelsch hesitated. “The jump from Division III to Division I is pretty hard,” she said.
Fonseca persisted. Holt-Kelsch conferred with her husband Sean and her parents, Patrick and Crystal and decided to go for it.
“I was lucky enough to get an interview, and I guess things went well. I fell in love with the campus,” Holt-Kelsch said. “People at Brown really love Brown. I thought it would be pretty cool to bring recruits to a place everybody loves.”
During her first team meeting, she sensed the intangibles championship teams need. Her players wanted to change the culture not only for themselves but for future Brown softball players.
“They wanted to make a winning program. They knew Brown was successful in the 1990s and they wanted to do it again. And they did not want to be one and done,” she said.
Brown got off to a solid start but opened the Ivy League season by losing a three-game series at home to Dartmouth.
“Our big learning was we had to figure out how to compete when things are not going well,” Holt-Kelsch said.
The Bears learned their lesson well and went on a 12-2 streak. They defeated Princeton, 4-3, in Providence in the penultimate game of the regular season and clinched the fourth spot in the Ivy League Tournament. Then they shut out the top-seeded Tigers, 4-0; edged Columbia, 2-1, and beat Princeton again, 4-1, for the title.
“We were so excited and in the moment,” she said. “I did not sleep a wink.”
Sunday morning at 4:30, she received a text from Richard Fonseca, the RIC assistant who followed her to Brown.
“I just checked ESPN. We did in fact, win the Ivy League Tournament. It was not a dream!”
So now the Brown softball team and their first-year head coach are in Lubbock, Texas, to play 12th-ranked Texas Tech Friday at 5:30 in the NCAA Division I Tournament. Mississippi State and Washington are the other teams in the bracket.
“Do you know how hard it is to get to Lubbock? I’ve been to Texas many times, but Lubbock is in the middle of nowhere,” Holt-Kelsch said.
She was laughing, though, not complaining. The girl who grew up in Mount Pleasant and was late to the college recruiting process had to wait until she was 34 but finally reached the promised land known as the NCAA softball tournament.
“Someone is looking out for me,” she said.
FUN FACT: First-year pitcher Abby Bettencourt’s mother Lauren, played on Brown’s 1997 NCAA Tournament team.
Brown softball is not the only local championship team. Kudos to the Division III baseball dynasty at Salve Regina. The 10th-ranked Seahawks (32-7) won the NEWMAC tournament and are the top seed in the DIII regional at Penn State Harrisburg this weekend. They will play Little East champion Keene State on Friday. Penn State Harrisburg and The College of New Jersey are the other entrants. This is SRU’s 10th trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament.
FUN FACT: Salve Regina is riding a school record 17-game winning streak.
Johnson & Wales (28-13) baseball earned a trip to the DIII tournament at Salisbury, Md., after winning the GNAC championship. The Wildcats will play host to Salisbury University Friday afternoon. Baldwin Wallace and Ramapo will meet Saturday, with the winners playing Sunday.
FUN FACTS: Left-hander Aidan Vining is the GNAC pitcher of the year for the third time. Third baseman Xavier Botelho from Rehoboth is the all-conference second-team.
Bryant University (30-17-1) is the America East regular-season champion and the top seed for the six-team conference tournament May 21-24 at the University of Maine at Orono. The Bulldogs have won 19 of their last 22 games and close out the regular season with a three-game series at UMBC starting Thursday night.
FUN FACT: Bryant has won 12 regular-season titles in 16 years as a Division I program.
First-place University of Rhode Island (33-19) baseball is in Philadelphia for a three-game series at St. Joseph’s that will conclude the regular season. The Rams will play in the Atlantic-10 tournament starting Tuesday, May 20, in Tysons, Va. They hold a one-game lead over George Mason.
FUN FACTS: URI head coach Raphael Cerrato needs two victories to become Rhody’s all-time winning baseball coach. Jim Foster’s teams won 268 games from 2006 to 2014. Cerrato has won 267 games since 2016. Frank Leoni won 266 from 1993 to 2005.
