SPRINGFIELD, Mass.—Four years ago, within just a day of each other, Gracie Hemstock and Alex Ferriouolo committed to play softball at Western New England University.
The two had been teammates on the Cheshire Wildcats travel softball program and immediately texted each other. Soon came the next obvious question: “Want to be roommates?”
Friends, teammates, roommates.
And now, Hemstock, who hails from Cheshire, and Ferriouolo, a resident of North Haven, can add another joint title: WNE Softball Captains.
“These two have grown not only in their communication, but also their personalities and their leadership roles,” said WNE head coach Amanda Novak, herself a native of Connecticut, having grown up in Greenwich. “Them being seniors wasn’t the only factor in them being captains. It was also how they lead by example on and off the field. So, I think we made a good choice.”
When both players arrived on campus, they made an immediate impact with the Golden Bears softball program.
Ferriouolo immediately became WNE’s starting shortstop and has played in 126 games over her three seasons. Hemstock did get to play in 19 games as a freshman but has played in 82 more games over the past two seasons, giving her 101 outings in her career.
Heading into this final season, and coming off last year’s Commonwealth Coast Conference championship, the pair are looking forwarding to being the best possible captains for the Golden Bears in 2025.
“Me and Alex have a great relationship and it’s really awesome that we get to work together like this,” said Hemstock. “I mean we’ve been roommates and everything, so it’s fun and it means a lot because we take pride in leadership, and we just want to give back to the game we’ve loved so long.”
“One day we were walking to practice, and we were just like, ‘We can’t wait until we’re seniors, to be captain,’” Ferriouolo added. “I just think a big thing for us is building relationships with the younger girls.”
After Western New England won the CCC title a year ago, the Golden Bears went two-and-out in the NCAA Division 3 tournament.
Eight seniors graduated from the team, leaving the two captains and Novak with a very young group coming into the new season.
“I think our freshman class came in very excited to play,” said Hemstock, a Criminal Justice major who someday hopes to work for the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Secret Service. “This is a new space, a new area, a new coach, a new team for them. I think it’s really important for me and Alex to show them that even though we are senior captains, we are not perfect. Everybody is going to make mistakes.”
It’s one of the lessons both players have learned from a lifetime of playing the game.
Hemstock played at Cheshire High School for Coach Kristine Drust and still remains close to the coaching staff to this day.
“I have nothing but respect for Coach Drust and (her staff) at Cheshire High School,” Hemstock said. “They were some of the best coaches I’ve ever had and I was so lucky to have had them when I was young so they could mold me. I really struggled with my confidence when I was younger, and we did a lot of work mentally on myself. I love them and still have a great relationship with them.”
Hemstock also found her way to the Cheshire Wildcats travel program at a young age, where she became a corner infielder, playing both third base and first base.
The latter position would pay off in a big way during last season’s CCC championship run when Novak turned to Hemstock to play first base.
“Before our second game in Florida, I said to Grace, ‘By the way, you’re going to play first base in this game,’” Novak recalled. “She just said, ‘Ok.’ That’s something very positive about Grace is that she’ll do anything for the team. She’ll do anything you ask her to do. She might turn around a take a deep breath, and be a little anxious about it, but she’ll do it.”
Ferriouolo, who played at North Haven, started her travel journey with the North Haven Pride. By the time she was off to high school, though, she switched to the Wildcats.
She would not team up with Hemstock until their senior year, however.
“I mean I had a great time at North Haven, but there’s obviously differences between Cheshire and North Haven (Softball),” Ferriouolo said. “But what helped me so much was I was able to be a captain for both softball and volleyball, so now I’m being able to use those experiences to help me a lot now.”
The fact Ferriouolo, an Elementary Education and Psychology major, won the shortstop job shortly after arriving on campus says a lot about her.
“She is probably one of, if not the best shortstop in our league,” Novak said. “There’s no ball she can’t get to. But she’s also a vocal leader out there, as well.”
The two friends finding each other their last year of travel ball, and then finding each other as roommates and now captains, seems like fate throwing a waist high fastball right down the heart of the plate.
“We immediately clicked, and we’re attached at the hip pretty much,” Hemstock said. “We just feed off each other really well.”
One of the main reasons the two get along so well is they know how make each other laugh.
“I have to say it’s just our humor,” Ferriouolo said. “Nobody gets it like we do. We have the most odd sense of humor that we find so funny and, like she said, we just feed off each other really well.”
They can also get downright serious and emotional with each other, as well.
Said Hemstock, with a tear in her eye, about Ferriouolo: “I have never met somebody in my entire life who just walks in a room and she’s just smiling, just pure sunshine in the form of a human. No one else has ever made me feel the way Alex has. We just get along so well. We’re just very happy-go-lucky people and we love feeding off each other.”
Ferriouolo can get the feels for Hemstock as well: “I just want to say I think I wouldn’t be the person that I am without having met her and having been roommates since freshman year was big time for us. Gracie has just been a vital part of me, and we wouldn’t be each other without each other.”
One other neat twist the story of this year’s WNE captains.
Hemstock’s older sister played at WNE before she arrived on campus while Ferriouolo’s little sister will play for the Golden Bears next year after she leaves.
Just another tie that binds the deep familial friendship between the two captains.
Novak will miss them.
“They mean the world to me,” she said. “They’re great kids. I love spending every minute with them. They’re just great people, which is something we look when we’re recruiting. We’re excited for them.”
First, though, is a CCC title to defend and more than 40 games to get ready to do so.
“I think we’re very fortunate that we have upperclassmen who have that championship mindset, and we know what it takes to win a championship,” Hemstock said. “we’re just trying to pass that down now to our underclassmen and get everybody on the same page.
With Gracie Hemstock and Alex Ferriouolo, two Connecticut kids, leading the way don’t be surprised to see what this young Golden Bears team could do come spring.
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