PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Eastern Connecticut State University's last baseball loss had come against the University of Massachusetts Boston in the second game of a doubleheader which had closed out the regular season eight days ago.
On Saturday in the championship game of the 26th annual Little East Conference tournament against the Beacons at Pontarelli Field on the Rhode Island College campus, the Warriors were not about to allow a repeat performance as defending national and LEC champion and second-seeded Eastern (34-10) successfully defended its LEC crown, defeating fourth-seeded UMass Boston, 14-6, to cap an unbeaten four-game run through the tournament and securing its 11th LEC tournament championship and an automatic berth in its 37th NCAA Division III tournament.
As Eastern was the only unbeaten team in the tournament, once-beaten UMass needed two victories over the Warriors to secure its fifth LEC tournament title. It was the third straight championship round appearance for Eastern, which is 11-4 once reaching the final round.
Junior rightfielder Jason Claiborn (Prospect) – the team's leading hitter at .368 this year -- was named the tournament Most Outstanding Player. He batted .563 (9-for-16), totaling three doubles, three RBI and seven runs scored. In the title game against UMass (24-18) -- the Beacons had beaten the Warriors the only other time the teams had met in the final at top-seeded UMass Boston in 2018 – Claiborn was 4-for-5 with four runs scored and an RBI.
Eastern collected 18 hits – 16 of them singles – off five UMass Boston pitchers, with the Beacons' six errors accounting for seven unearned runs. The 2-through-5 hitters accounted for 13 hits, ten runs and eight RBI.
The Warriors never trailed Saturday in winning for the seventh time in the last eight games and rode the standout pitching of senior righty Nathan Furino (East Haven), who worked into the seventh inning and allowed only two runs on six hits and two walks with eight strikeouts for his sixth win in eight decisions. Furino was making his 13th appearance of the season, fifth start.
Ten of Eastern's runs came in its final two at-bats. Leading 6-2, Eastern broke it open very late by sending 13 batters to the plate in the ninth and scoring eight runs on seven hits, three walks, a wild pitch and passed ball. Senior catcher Matt Malcom's (East Lyme) 14th home run of the season accounted for three runs in the inning and senior third baseman Brent Cosculluela (Miami, FL) added a two-run double.
Eastern took a 1-0 lead in the top of the third on junior first baseman Ryan Parent's (Southington) RBI single that plated Claiborn from second. Their lead was extended to 4-0 with a three-run fifth. Junior leftfielder Josh Cofrancesco (Southington) plated Claiborn with an RBI-single to open the scoring in that inning before scoring himself on an error. Junior DH Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) also scored on an error, one of six Beacon errors in the game.
Furino shut the Beacons out for the first five innings and took a 4-0 lead into the sixth before Aidan Blake got UMass Boston on the board with a two-run homer off the scoreboard in right, but Eastern had the answer in the top of the eighth, scoring two runs on RBI singles off the bats of Cofrancesco and Claiborn.
The entire NCAA tournament field will be announced Monday at noon on NCAA.com