MANSFIELD, Conn. – For the first time since 2016 and the first time under fourth-year head coach Brian Hamm's leadership, top-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University won the Little East Conference baseball tournament championship, defeating fifth-seeded UMass Dartmouth, 16-1, in a title game called after seven innings at the Eastern Baseball Stadium Saturday afternoon.
Eastern (39-3) outscored four opponents by a combined margin of 35-8 -- with seven of those runs coming in a one-run win over third-seeded University of Massachusetts Boston in Friday's winners' bracket final – in rolling to its tenth LEC tournament championship – four more than its nearest competitor.
Ranked No. 1 nationally, Eastern gains the automatic bid to its 36th NCAA Division III tournament, which gets underway this coming weekend with regional competition. The Warriors were making their 14th appearance in the LEC championship round and were facing UMass Dartmouth (18-23-1) for only the second time in the final. Making their third finals appearance in the last five years, the Corsairs fall to 1-6 all-time in finals appearances.
Winners of 13 consecutive games, including 27 of their last 28, the Warriors exploded on offense for 14 hits (four for extra bases) -- their largest output since April 27. The 16 runs were also the most runs put up by Eastern in a LEC tournament game since their 20-1 win over Western Connecticut State University in the first round of their 2009 title run.
The Warriors scored 11 unanswered runs in the game, highlighted by back-to-back home runs from graduate All-America leftfielder John Mesagno (Tappan, NY) and senior outfielder Jack Rich (Meriden) to start the fifth inning. A six-run sixth inning pushed the game into mercy rule territory as a Corsairs' error, two-RBI double from sophomore outfielder Jason Claiborn (Prospect), and heads up baserunning by junior shortstop Zach Donahue (South Windsor) on senior catcher Matt Malcom's (East Lyme) fielders' choice, ballooned Eastern's lead to 13 runs, 14-1.
With only two tournament hits through the first three games, All-America graduate leftfielder John Mesagno (Tappan, NY) reached safely five times, explodingwith a 4-for-4 game with four runs scored and three RBI, falling a triple short of the cycle. Mesagno drove in the game's first run in the second inning with an RBI single, part of a four-run Warrior inning, en route to a three-RBI game in which the Tappan, New York native scored four times.
Eastern had only one complete game in the regular season, but got its second route-going effort in the tournament Saturday in the form of All-New England senior lefty Aidan Dunn (Westfield, MA), who pitched the complete seven inning game for his fifth win in five decisions this year, giving up one run on five hits while striking out five and walking one to remain unbeaten (10-0) in his career. In 15 appearances this year, Dunn has a 1.63 ERA and 55 strikeouts and ten walks.
Senior right-handed pitcher Bryan Albee (Killingly) was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Albee (10-0) started the opener against six-seeded Plymouth State University, pitching eight shutout innings while allowing five hits and striking out seven batters on 108 pitches in the 6-0 decision, and came on in relief during the thrilling 8-7 victory over third-seeded UMass Boston to shut the door on the close affair with 2 2/3 innings of shutout baseball in which he allowed three hits, earned a strikeout, a walk, and his fourth save of the season on 39 pitches. The right-hander became the first pitcher to be named Most Outstanding Player since UMass Boston's Bryan Kaufman after the 2017 tournament and first Eastern pitcher since All-America right-hander Shawn Gilblair earned it in 2009. Gilblair also won the award during the 2007 and 2008 tournament runs that the Warriors made.
After losing its opening game to second-seeded Rhode Island College, 8-6, UMass Dartmouth rattled off three consecutive wins against Plymouth State, the Anchormen, and UMass Boston to make it to the title game against Eastern, their seventh appearance all time and first since 2019.
The UMass offense was paced by junior infielder DJ Perron who entered the day as the hottest hitter in the tournament, going 8-for-18 with three home runs, 10 RBIs, a double, scoring six times, and swiping two bases. Perron accounted for 10 of the 35 runs scored by the Corsairs in the tournament before being held in check by Dunn, who got the start for the Warriors, stifling the junior who went 1-for-3 on the afternoon.
Staked to a 5-0 by the third inning, Dunn was able to quell the UMass Dartmouth threat when it loaded the bases with nobody out. After junior utilityman Andrew Bryant reached on a fielders' choice, scoring a run, Dunn came back to strike out Perron and get sophomore designated hitter Andrew Possi to ground into an inning-ending double play to escape the jam with a 5-1 lead.
Coming into the game in the fourth inning with his team up 5-1, senior second baseman Noah Plantamuro (Bristol) made his mark on the championship game with a 2-for-3 performance in which his fifth-inning RBI single helped break open the Warrior lead, 8-1, and his two-run RBI single in the seventh capped off the Eastern 16-run performance.
In 34 tournament innings, the Warrior pitching staff combined on a 1.32 ERA and gave up only three extra base hits, while the offense averaged nearly nine runs and the defense fielded at .979, committing only three errors.
The 16-run output was the most runs in the deciding game of the tournament, breaking the previous mark set in the first installment between the two teams in the 2003 title game, when Eastern defeated UMass Dartmouth, 15-0, at Eastern Baseball Stadium for its second-ever LEC title.