Box Score WESTFIELD, Mass. – A pitching staff which has struggled mightily this year after leading the Little East Conference in earned run average by a wide margin a year ago got a much-needed boost from three youngsters in a 14-4 non-conference baseball victory over Westfield State University Friday at Bud and Jim Hagan Field
Sophomore righty Luis Vega (Willimantic), freshman lefty Jacob Smith (East Longmeadow, MA) and freshman righty Ben Ruddock (Deerfield, MA) combined on a seven-hitter with eight strikeouts, and junior third baseman Chad Adams (Ware, MA) and senior second baseman Corey Keane (Tolland) extended double-digit hitting streaks in an 18-hit attack as Eastern (13-14) defeated Westfield (18-9) for the 12th time in the last 13 meetings. The team's hit total was its second-highest of the season.
In three previous losses in its last four games, Eastern's pitchers had surrendered an average of 17 runs per outing. Friday, Vega allowed four hits and two earned runs while pitching into the fourth before giving way to Smith with the bases loaded and two runs in. Making his fifth collegiate appearance, Smith got an outfield fly ball to end the inning and preserve Eastern's 4-3 lead, and pitched through the eighth inning to record his first collegiate win in his first decision. Smith went 4 1/3 innings, fanning seven and allowing only one (earned run). Ruddock faced three batters in the ninth to close out the victory.
Keane had three hits, scored a run and drove in a run to extend his hitting streak to 14, while Adams was 2-for-5 with a run scored and three RBI. Adams slammed his team-leading sixth home run of the season to give Eastern a 2-0 lead in the first inning and later had an RBI single in Eastern's six-run seventh inning.
Leading 4-3, the Warriors scored four runs in the sixth on five hits – two coming on junior No. 9 hitter Tim Budd's (Cheshire) single – and broke it open by batting around in the seventh to score six runs on five more hits.
Senior rightfielder Kyle Hart (Guilford) had a double and triple, scored three runs and drove in one and Budd had two hits, drove in three runs and scored two. Senior Joe Perez (North Branford) was 2-for-2 with two walks and three runs scored.
Eastern hosts the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in a Little East Conference doubleheader Saturday at noon at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.
