Sophomore Bri Frongillo, who sports #2 for Emerson Women’s Basketball team, earned the #1 postseason honor this past week when she was named to the NEWMAC All-Conference First Team.
Frongillo was one of just six players who earned the First-Team distinction. This comes at the end of her first season with Emerson as she transferred from Bryant University in the fall of of 2023. Joining the NEWMAC this season, Frongillo made her impact.
NEWMAC awards are decided by coaches from the conference’s twelve colleges and universities—Babson College, Clark University, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Emerson College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mount Holyoke College, Salve Regina University, Smith College, Springfield College, Wellesley College, Wheaton College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Frongillo’s impressive 42 percent 3-point conversion rate helped earn her spot on this honorary team. Emerson Women’s Basketball head coach, Bill Gould, said this stat made her the 8th best Division III basketball player in the country in 3-point field goal percentage.
“She’s a great scorer,” Gould said in an interview with The Beacon. “Sometimes you have people who are great shooters who aren’t great scorers, or vice versa, but Bri’s both, which makes her really hard to guard from an opponent’s point of view.”
Transferring from a Division I school, Frongillo had big expectations to live up to. She was new to the group, yet already a sophomore. She had to merge into a pre-existing basketball team where she knew no one. On top of that, Frongillo plays point guard, which is inherently a leadership position on the court.
Her sophomore year provided many new experiences from her freshman year, and not just because she moved states.
“Emerson has been entirely different from Bryant in the best way possible,” Frongillo said in an interview with The Beacon. “I love going to school here. It is completely different in every single way that I would like it to be.”
Her student experience has been different indeed. In transferring to Emerson, Frongillo took on a major in film, which was not offered at her previous university. She started all 25 games for the Emerson Lions this season, coming into her stride both on and off the court.
Frongillo found her community at Emerson in four short months. From practices to games to film sessions, she acclimated to the team, building friendships with those who were previously strangers.
“We could have found more success,” Frongillo said, reflecting on this season ending 13-12. “We didn’t consistently play at our full potential until the last few games of the season, which was unfortunate, because we had a really solid team that could have done really great things.”
Coach Gould mirrored this sentiment. Frongillo was a great addition to the team for this season, and she can only get better in her next two seasons at Emerson.
“It’s hard for a coach to look at a player who leads the conference in scoring and is fourth in assists and think ‘there is so much more room for growth,’” Gould said. “It feels like I’m asking her to be better than first place.”
While Frongillo did establish her place on the court this season, no player is perfect.
“I do think there is a lot of room for growth in terms of control of the team—directing and being in charge of our whole system of offense,” Gould continued.
Earning All-Conference First Team her sophomore year is quite an accomplishment. Frongillo’s next step is one into a leadership position. With five seniors graduating, Emerson Women’s Basketball is going to be a young team next year. There are no rising seniors for next season, so the soon-to-be juniors—Bri Frongillo and two others—will be the veteran players.
“It will be quite a shift, but in a good way,” Frongillo said. “Because we are so young and new, it will require the current sophomores to step into those leadership roles, which I look forward to.”
Just as she transitioned from Bryant to Emerson, Frongillo will now transition from new kid to veteran basketball player. The incoming class of freshmen will not know a basketball team without Bri Frongillo. Catch her on the court next season.
