MANSFIELD, Conn. – Greg Porter (Mystic) and Adam Merritt (Seymour) combined on a two-hit shutout and the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team scored two early runs in a 3-0 victory over the University of Massachusetts Boston in the Little East Conference opener for both teams Saturday morning at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.

At right: Greg Porter (Photo by Heather Avery)

In the second game, Lucas Ilges no-hit Eastern (7-4, 1-1 Little East) for 6 1/3 innings and combined on a four-hitter with Matt Dziok in UMass Boston's (6-5, 1-1 Little East) 3-2 victory. The Beacons allowed the tying runs in the seventh inning of the second game but ended an eight-game losing streak at the hands of Eastern by pushing across the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth. Charlie LaPaglia doubled with one out, moved to third on a ground ball, and scored on first-game losing pitcher Kyle Szatrowski's  infield single.

In his fourth start of the year in Eastern's home debut, Porter (3-1) no-hit UMass  through four innings before Alex Webb stroked a one-out single down the left field line in the fifth. Porter preserved Eastern's 2-0 lead at that point by getting an outfield fly ball and called strike to subdue the threat. Porter, the winning pitcher in first-year head coach Matt LaBranche's first victory at Eastern three weeks ago, gave LaBranche his first home triumph.

Porter was lifted in favor of Merritt after allowing two baserunners with two out in the eighth. Merritt ended the inning with a called strikeout and gained his second win by ending the game with an infield ground ball doubleplay after putting the first two runners aboard on hit-by-pitch.

Porter, who lowered his earned run average to 1.86, allowed two hits in 7 2/3 innings, fanning 12 and walking three.

In shutting out UMass Boston for the third time in the last four meetings, Eastern pushed across an earned run in the second on a leadoff single by Corey Keane (Tolland) and two errors and made it 2-0 on consecutive one-out hits by Joe Perez (North Branford), Brendan Lynch (Wethersfield) and Mike Vaccarelli (Wolcott). Lynch doubled Perez to third with his 99^th career hit, and Vaccarelli knocked in his team-leading 11^th run of the season. Three more consecutive hits  in the eighth made it 3-0. Vaccarelli had a leadoff double, was singled to third by Keane and came home on a double by Gavin Lavallee (New Milford).

The team ERA leader, Ilges gave up only three hits and both Eastern runs over eight innings, fanning four and walking four. Dziok stranded the tying run at first with an outfield fly ball for his second save of the season.

UMass Boston never trailed but the Warriors rallied for two tying runs in the bottom of the seventh when they got their first three hits of the game. Lavallee singled with one out, Nik Ververis (Plainfield) doubled him to third, Andrew Scully (Stratford)  drove in his first career run withi a ground ball, and sophomore Tim Budd (Cheshire) tied the game with a two-out single.

Eastern hosts Wesleyan University Monday at 4 p.m.