Mr. & Mrs. Frank J. Sheehan III

Christina D. Batastini and Frank J. Sheehan III were married June 29 at St. Pius V Church, Providence, by the Rev. Ken Letoile, OP. The bride is the daughter of Armand and Mary Batastini of Providence. The groom is the son of Jane Sheehan of Canton, Mass., and the late Frank Sheehan Jr. The honor attendants for their sister were Laurie Batastini and Maria Dell’Ovo. The bridesmaids were Kara Batastini, Chandra Benton, Caroline Kautzman, Nicole Marchand and Jen Tutalo. The flower girls were Olivia Pallister and Emilia Dell’Ovo. The best man was Dan Bohane. The ushers were Armand Batastini III, brother of the bride, Tom Dempsey, Ron DeVincenzo, Joe Davis, Paul Frisone, Abbott Burrell and Scott McGowan. The ring bearer was Paul Joseph Dell’Ovo. The bride graduated from Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. She is the owner of Batastini School of Basketball. The groom graduated from the University of New Haven in Connecticut. He is the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for Brown University football. They honeymooned on the Amalfi Coast in Italy and make their home in Providence.

Brooke is off to a good start

Brooke has now played two "friendly games" in Italy. Viterbo beat Pomezia 45-43 and then Santa Marinella 73-28. In the second game, Brooke scored 23 points, and Michelle Maslowski, the other American on the team scored 24 points. They pretty much owned that game. The articles on the Viterbo website have this to say about them:

Brooke Smith ... arrived in Viterbo on Monday afternoon, but appeared already in good physical condition. Thanks above all to the defense and the initiative of the two Americans Smith and Maslowski, more and more integrated in the games and the group.

It's nice to see that Brooke has started her international basketball career so well! Here is a link to the Viterbo website. Most of the information there (roster, schedule, results) is for the 2006-07 season, but hopefully that will be updated soon when the season starts. You can use Google Translate to translate the Italian information to English. The result is fairly understandable. Thanks to Anna, the Stanford WBB fan who provided the information for this post.

Katie Denny studying the mental health of student-athletes

Katie Denny was the teaching assistant last year for Hans Steiner's Psych seminar "Mental Health in Women Athletes". She earned her M.A. in psychology at Stanford and will apply to graduate school this year. She plans to launch a mentoring program with the Stanford women's tennis team, offering advice to student-athletes on dealing with stressful situations. Here is the article from Stanford Magazine.