Box Score GORHAM, Maine – Three Eastern Connecticut State University pitchers held the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth to one run over the final six innings but the Warriors were unable to complete a comeback from six runs down in a 7-6 loss in the losers' bracket final of the 2013 Little East Conference Baseball Tournament Saturday morning at the USM Baseball Stadium.
Top-seeded University of Southern Maine (37-7) completed a four-game tournament sweep with a 4-2 win over UMass Dartmouth (18-23) in the first game of the championship round which gives the Huskies their second straight tourney title, fourth overall. USM had gone 12 years without a tournament championship before surviving a first-game loss to win four straight and down Plymouth State University in the 2012 title tilt.
Seeded second, Eastern (30-13-1) won its first two tournament games – 10-9 over UMass Dartmouth Wednesday and completed a 9-1 victory over fourth-seeded Massachusetts Boston which began Thursday and concluded Friday. In Friday's winners' bracket final, Southern Maine hammered Eastern, 22-9, sending the Warriors into Saturday's losers' bracket final against UMass Dartmouth Saturday morning. Prior to the Eastern game, UMD completed a 21-5 victory over UMass Dartmouth which was suspended due to darkness in the top of the eighth inning.
Making his first career start in his 27th career appearance Saturday against UMass Dartmouth Saturday, junior righty Pat Barnett (Windsor) was raked for six runs on seven hits in the first two innings, but settled down to give up only a two-out fourth-inning solo home run until giving way to freshman righty Sam Kosterich (Stamford) with one out and one on in the seventh.
Down 6-0, the Warriors bounced back with four runs on six hits and a sacrifice fly in the fourth, chasing UMD starter George Bent. Trailing 7-4, Eastern pulled to within one with two runs in the seventh on a leadoff double by junior shortstop Brendan Lynch (Wethersfield), singles by junior third baseman Mike Vaccarelli (Wolcott) and senior centerfield Mike Riemer (Ellington) and a ground ball by senior first baseman Joe Balowski (Berlin), which scored the second run despite resulting in a double play.
In the four-run fourth, Balowski and No. 8 hitter Nik Ververis (Plainfield) doubled, Ververis' sending home two runs, and Riemer, junior DH Gavin Lavallee (New Milford), junior leftfielder Tommy McKenna (Lexington, MA), and No. 9 hitter Tyler Caserta (Stratford) singled. Senior second baseman Drew Accomando (Monroe) drove in the first run of the inning with a sacrifice fly, with McKenna's single also plating a run.
With Eastern looking to even the game in the top of the ninth, Riemer walked with one out, but junior righty Karney Boff earned his second save of the year by getting a 4-6-3 game-ending double play.
Each team recorded three double plays in the game. The Warriors got a difficult 3-6-3 twin killing started and ended by Balowski at first base in the third, snuffed out a UMD rally with an inning-ending DP started by Lynch in the seventh, and upon entering right field as a late-inning defensive replacement in the eighth, sophomore Adam Roderick (West Hartford), caught a fly ball and doubled UMD's Corey Allison off first to end the inning.
Every Eastern starter had at least one hit in the 15-hit Eastern attack, with Lynch, Riemer, Balowski, Accomando, Lavallee and Ververis all collecting two. Riemer's RBI single in the seventh was the 98th hit of his four-year career.
Senior righty Matt Purnell (Stafford Springs) broke the 12-year-old season record for appearances when he entered the game for the 29th time this season, recording the final five outs of the game. Purnell, who fanned one and allowed one hit, had earlier this year set the season record for relief appearances, breaking the previous mark of 26. He has nine saves, one shy of the season mark.
Eastern and UMass Dartmouth split four games this year, each winning by a run in the LEC tournament, and splitting an April 27 doubleheader at the Eastern Baseball Stadium, the Warriors winning the first game by a run.
In four games in the tournament, Eastern batted .338 -- above its season average of .295 -- but had an 8.49 earned-run average (inflated largely by Southern Maine's 19 earned runs in Game 3). Ververis batted .500 (5-for-1) with six RBI, Riemer .467 (7-for-15) with five RBI and Accomando and McKenna .385 (both were 5-for-13). Lavallee reached nine times with four hits, four walks and a hit-by-pitch, and scored a team-high six runs. Caserta matched Ververis with six RBI. Senior righty Evan Chamberlain (Amston), Purnell and sophomore righty Tyler Cyr (Bristol) combined to pitch 11 1/3 innings, giving up one earned run on eight hits with eight strikeouts.
Ranked fifth in the most recent NCAA Division III regional ratings, Eastern will be considered for an at-large berth to its 33rd NCAA tournament when announcements are made Monday.
