Seeded fifth, Eastern (20-17) ended second-seeded Southern Maine's (29-12) seven-game winning streak and moved into the winners' bracket of the six-team double-elimination tournament Thursday at 7 p.m. against No. 3 UMass Dartmouth, which edged No. 4 Plymouth State University, 2-1, Wednesday night. The Corsairs swept the Warriors in the regular season, both times in extra innings.

In Wednesday's first game, sixth-seeded Western Connecticut sent top-seeded and host UMass Boston into the loser's bracket with a 4-3 victory.

Against Southern Maine, the top-rated team in the NCAA New England region, freshman righty Jordan Muchin (West Hartford)  pitched into the sixth inning to avenge his only loss of the season (at Southern Maine five days ago), and freshman Alex Parkos (Meriden) socked a three-run home run to highlight a four-run first inning. Southern Maine had swept Eastern, 14-7, 11-4, Friday at Gorham, ME.

At right: D.J. Scavone drives in two runs with this fifth-inning double that propelled the Warriors into a 6-2 lead.

While the Warriors had multiple runs in each of the four innings in which they scored, Muchin and relievers Nick Rascati (Wallingford) and Sam Kosterich (Stamford) never allowed USM (.325 team batting average) to score more than one run in an inning. Thirteen of Southern Maine's 14 hits were singles and the Huskies stranded 13.

Trailing 8-2 in the sixth, Southern Maine pushed across a run on three infield  singles and a seeing-eye single through the left side, but left the bases loaded after Rascati, a freshman lefty, got senior Sam Dexter (.408) – last year's LEC Player-of-the-Year and LEC tournament co-MVP – to foul out on a one-strike pitch.

 

In the first, Eastern had four hits and scored four runs after there were two out against
USM right-handed starter Shyler Scates (7-2). The Warriors added four more runs in the fifth to move out to an 8-2 lead, recording four more hits and knocking out Scates. Sophomore D.J. Scavone (Auburn, MA) doubled in the first two after junior Alex Zachary (Enfield) singled and senior Chad Adams (Ware, MA) walked with one out. Parkos greeted new pitcher Ryan Browner by plating Scavone with a single, and Parkos came home on junior Christian Budzik's (Cromwell) ground ball against a drawn-in infield.
 

Eastern, which lost to USM in last year's LEC tournament title game, pulled away by tacking on two more in the eighth on Zachary's two-out home run to left and three in the ninth when they collected four hits in an inning for the third time, all three runs coming in on freshman Alexander White's (West Hartford) bases-clearing double.

Scavone had three hits (two doubles), drove in three runs and scored two. Senior captain Tim Budd (Cheshire) had two hits, giving him 100 in his three-year Eastern career. Parkos drove in four runs and Zachary two. Junior Pat Sirois (Cromwell), Zachary and Adams each reached four times with two hits and two walks.

Kosterich closed out the win when he took over for Rascati with two on and none out in the eighth. He got a pair of outfield fly balls to keep USM to one run in the eighth, and induced three infield ground balls – allowing a run without yielding a hit – in the ninth.

Muchin allowed ten hits in 5 2/3 innings to gain his fifth win. He walked only one and fanned three.