CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --  Playing its fifth regionally-ranked opponent in a week, the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team rode a six-run sixth inning and shutout relief from its final two pitchers to a 9-3 victory over MIT Monday afternoon at Briggs Field.

Eastern (7-9) ends a four-game losing streak by handing MIT (9-4) its first northern loss after five opening wins. Ranked in a tie for eighth in New England, MIT had eliminated Eastern in the second round of last year's NCAA Division III New England Regional Tournament.

Trailing 2-0, Eastern scored six runs in the sixth on five hits and an error, then tacked on three more in the seventh on two hits and another MIT error. Batting ninth in the order, junior catcher Tim Budd (Cheshire) drove in two runs in the sixth with a single and two runs in the seventh with a double.

Sophomore lefty Ron Buchetto (Clinton) was credited with his first collegiate win by getting four outs after replacing senior righty Tyler Cyr (Bristol) with two out and a runner on first and Eastern trailing 2-0 in the fifth. Buchetto got a swinging strikeout to end the threat and the Warriors followed with their six-run rally in their next at-bats.

Bucetto was lifted after the first two batters of the seventh reached safely, and freshman righty Hunter Hamlin (Mansfield) and junior righty Patrick O'Neill (Thomaston)  nailed down the win by stranding four runners over the final three innings. Hamlin got out of the seventh with two infield pops that stranded two runners and in his first relief appearance of the year, and O'Neill struck out two and allowed two hits over the final two innings.

Budd and senior centerfielder Joe Perez (North Branford) each had two hits, with Perez also reaching when hit by a pitch and scoring twice. Five Eastern batters who either reached on error, walk or hit-by-pitch, scored runs, including all three in the seventh inning.

Senior shortstop Parker Tew had four of MIT's 12 hits. He homered leading off the fourth to break a scoreless tie and later doubled with one out in the ninth. MIT starter Kyler Kocher, a freshman righty, carried a shutout into the sixth, but freshman righty reliever Tim Zhong was roughed up for five hits in one inning, although five of the six runs he allowed were unearned.

Among regionally-ranked teams in the last week, Eastern had beaten Endicott College but had lost to Wesleyan University and twice to the University of Southern Maine in the Little East Conference Saturday.

Eastern visits Manhattanville College Thursday at 3:30 p.m.