By Jim Dixon
D3sports.com

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The Eastern Connecticut offense found their grove and hit their way into a date with Salisbury in the D-III Championship Series with a 8-1 win over LaGrange in game twelve of the D-III World Series on Monday, June 6.

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Eastern Connecticut entered the game today batting .242, nearly 100 points lower than their season batting average of .338. The Warriors tagged the LaGrange pitching for 15 hits as they broke out of their hitting slump.

"Game went as planned," said Eastern Connecticut head coach Brian Hamm. "Starting pitching was outstanding, we played some great defense behind them. There as stretches where you will not swing it well and we have faced better pitching. Today it was good to get the bats going again."

Eastern Connecticut advances to the D-III Championship Series to face the defending champions, Salisbury ay 11 a.m. CT on Tuesday.

John Mesagno led Eastern Connecticut's offensive explosion with a 3-for-5 day. He scored once and drove in three. Photo by David Malamut d3photography.com

Eastern Connecticut set the tone of the game in the first. With a run on three hits, both runs and hits would come in bunches. Ryan Bagdasarian started the Warriors hit parade with a single and scored on Luke Broadhurst's double to left center. John Mesagno would single putting runners on the corner but the LaGrange pitching staff would strand them.

The Warriors would continue their scoring in the second with three more tallies. Josh Tower started the hit parade with a lead off single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Jason Claiborn also laid down a bunt that went for an infield single. A Zach Donahue safety to right plated Tower and a Mesagno single brought home Claiborn and Donahue.

Three more runs were added in the fourth inning for ECSU. Donahue rached for the second time on a smash off the first baseman's glove.Two outs later it was three more singles for Mesagno, Matt Malcom and Jack Rich. Mesagno's safety score one run while Rich's drove in two.

LaGrange huddled after the the three run fourth and came out with three straight singles. David Smigelski, Jared Aldridge and Rhett Herbert all singled with Herbet's plating Smigelski for the Panther's first run. ECSU pulled Aiden Dunn, their starting pitcher, in favor of Jack Wallace. Wallace proved effective, maintaining Eastern Connecticut's six run lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, Eastern Connecticut used two hits and two walks to add to their lead.

"This is the standard," said LaGrange head coach David Kelton. "This is the first group that broke through . No doubt we will be back."

LaGrange finishes bracket play 2-2 and a third place finish shared with UW-Stevens Point. and heads home with a 44-9 record.