BOSTON – On Friday,a six-run outburst in the third inning kept the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team afloat in an 8-2 elimination game win over Keene State College in the 2024 Little East Conference baseball tournament. On Saturday, its opponent's five-run explosion – also in the third inning -- sunk the Warriors' hopes and ushered them out of the double-elimination tournament.
Top-seeded and host University of Massachusetts Boston (27-15) scored five times in the third on five hits and went on to a 7-2 victory over second-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University in the losers' bracket final Saturday afternoon at Monan Park.
With its third loss against UMass Boston this year, two-time defending champion Eastern (29-12) was eliminated in its effort to match the Beacons as the only team in LEC tournament history to win as many as three straight titles. UMass Boston advances to face third-seeded and unbeaten University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (23-18-1) later Saturday in a rematch of a winners' bracket game played Friday and won in a rout by UMass Dartmouth, 12-1, in a game stopped after eight innings due to the mercy rule.
A UMass Boston win later today against UMass Dartmouth would force one final game for the tournament title and an automatic berth in the 2024 NCAA Division III tournament. UMass Boston finished second to Eastern last year and UMass Dartmouth second to the Warriors in 2022. UMass Boston has beaten UMass Dartmouth twice en route to three straight championships from 2017 to 2019 – giving the Beacons a total of four championships since 2010. The Corsairs are playing in the championship round this year for the seventh time, winning once over host University of Southern Maine 24 years ago.
Ranked in the national Top 25 throughout the season – and most recently at No. 22 – Eastern will be considered for an at-large representative to its 38th NCAA tournament when the entire field is announced Monday.
Eastern first-year lefty Chris Torres (West Springfield, MA), who has struggled over the second half of the season after compiling a 0.00 ERA through his first five appearances, gave up either a hit or an RBI to seven straight batters after getting the first out of the third as the Warriors were eliminated from the tournament in four games.
For the second time in the tournament, Eastern fell victim to an outstanding complete-game effort. In his eighth start of the year, sophomore righty Ethan Hunt (7-1) went the distance for the Beacons for the first time this year, tossing a seven-hitter with eight strikeouts and only one walk.
Eastern opened the tournament Wednesday with its ninth straight tournament win over three years, 8-5 over fifth-seeded Keene State College before being shut out for the first time in 44 LEC tournament games Friday by UMass Dartmouth. Eastern remained alive Friday night behind graduate righty Nathan Furino's (East Haven) complete-game five-hitter and eliminated Keene, 8-2.
Now 16-2 at home this year, UMass Boston took a 2-0 lead in the second inning on RBI singles by Elliot Miles and Mike Meager, with Meagher capping the five-run third inning with a two-out RBI single to center that pushed the lead to 7-0.
Eastern was listless offensively through four innings (one infield hit) against Hunt, who had allowed two hits in two innings of relief in UMB's second-game win over Eastern April 27 at the Eastern Baseball Stadium. Down 7-0, Eastern finally showed signs of life when it scored both of its runs in the fifth on back-to-back two-out singles by No. 9 hitter Jason Clairborn (Prospect) and leadoff hitter Zach Donahue (South Windsor).
In his staff-leading 18th appearance (57th of his career) of the season, senior righty Nolan Lincoln (Londonderry, NH) took over for Torres with the bases loaded and one out in the third, giving up three runs (all charged to Torres) on an infield ground ball and Meagher's two-run single. Junior righty transfer Tiernan Powers (Haddam Neck) was strong in his eighth relief appearance of the year – giving the Warriors an opportunity to rally from five runs down. Powers allowed only two hits in 3 2/3 scoreless innings as the third of four Eastern pitchers, striking out two without a walk.
Only Claiborn had multiple hits (2) – his fourth multi-hit game in the last nine -- for the Warriors off Hunt, who spaced seven singles and allowed five other hitters one hit each.