DANBURY, Conn. – Five pitchers combined on an eight-hitter with 14 strikeouts in Eastern Connecticut State University's 6-2 Little East Conference victory over Western Connecticut State University Tuesday afternoon at Westside Field.

Having lost six of its previous eight following a 21-5 start, No. 23 Eastern (24-11, 11-3 LEC) took a 6-0 lead into the sixth inning and went on to its 17^th straight win over WestConn (5-25, 1-13).

Sitting third in the conference following Saturday's two home losses to the University of Massachusetts Boston (24-12, 13-3 LEC), the Warriors close out their conference season Friday with a noon doubleheader at LEC leader University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (20-15-1, 12-2 LEC). An Eastern sweep of the Corsairs would leave the Warriors with a share of the LEC regular-season championship with UMass Boston, but Eastern would defer to the Beacons as the No. 1 seed based upon its two losses this past Saturday to UMB.

A sweep by UMass Dartmouth over Eastern Saturday would give the Corsairs the regular-season title and No. 1 seed while a split would make UMass Dartmouth and UMass Boston co-champions. In the case of an Eastern-UMD split Saturday, unofficially, UMass Boston would earn the No. 1 seed based upon splitting the season series with UMass Dartmouth and sweeping Eastern.

Against Western, seniors Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) and Mason Balmer (North Haven) each had two hits and drove in two runs while senior shortstop Zach Donahue (South Windsor) had two hits and scored two runs, extending his on-base streak to 29. Balmer's two-run single gave Eastern a 2-0 lead in the second inning, with Soriano's RBI single giving Eastern an unearned run in the third. After another Soriano single made it 4-0 in the fifth, the Warriors tacked on two unearned runs in the sixth on an inning-opening error, walk, hit-by-pitch and No. 9 hitter Tiernan Lynch's (Easton) two-out single.

Graduate righty Nathan Furino (East Haven) won his fifth game without a loss this year and improved his career record to 17-4 by striking out six without a walk in 3 1/3 innings of relief. To date, Furino has struck out 42 and walked only six in 41 1/3 innings over 12 appearances. In his second start of the year (12^th appearance), junior righty Mike Furgalack (Southington) pitched the first two scoreless innings, fanning three with a walk and allowing one hit before giving way to Furino.

Eastern visits Western New England University (19-16) Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.at Trelease Park  in a non-conference game.