KEENE, N.H. – Eastern Connecticut State University junior first baseman Summer Cipriani (North Stonington) blasted a three-run home run in the top of the sixth inning to cut a five-run deficit to two, but Keene State College senior righty Mariah Crisp pitched a scoreless seventh inning as the top-ranked Owls' dropped the sixth-seeded Warriors into the losers' bracket of the 2016 Little East Conference Softball Tournament with a 5-3 victory Tuesday afternoon at the Owl Athletic Complex.

Defending tournament champion Eastern (15-24) faces an elimination game when the six-team double-elimination tournament resumes at Keene State (21-14) Friday (the three first-round games were scheduled at campus site). The Warriors play Friday at 11 a.m. against the loser of Wednesday's first-round game between fifth-seeded UMass Boston and second-seeded UMass Dartmouth (that game was postponed by rain Tuesday).

A loss in Friday's first game eliminates Eastern while a win advances it to another elimination game at noon Saturday.

Crisp (14-6), the tournament MVP as a sophomore when she pitched Keene to the title on Eastern's home field, carried a three-hit shutout and a 5-0 lead into the sixth Tuesday. Senior third baseman Samantha Rentz (Griswold) and junior infielder Gina Georgetti (Milford) sandwiched singles around a strikeout in the sixth, and the left-handed swinging Cipriani crushed her third home run of the year to right-center – only the second home run in 145 innings allowed this year by Crisp – to pull the Warriors to within two.

Crisp retired the Warriors in order in the seventh on two infield outs and a game-ending strikeouts – her fifth of the game – to defeat Eastern for the third time this year as Keene advanced to a winners' bracket game Friday against third-seeded University of Southern Maine. The Huskies lost, 10-3, to fourth-seeded Western Connecticut Tuesday in Gorham, ME.

Keene, a winner of six of its last seven and 10-1 at home, scored single runs in each of its first three at-bats, chasing Eastern junior righty Samantha Valentine (Ridge, NY) in favor of Cipriani in the second. Leading 3-0, Keene sealed the victory when junior second baseman Kayla Votto stroked a two-run home run in the fifth to push the lead to 5-0.

Cipriani allowed only five hits and two earned runs without a walk in 4 1/3 innings of relief. Valentine fell to 7-11 with the loss.

Cipriani had two of Eastern's hits, but the top four starters in the Eastern lineup went 1-for-10 with three strikeouts.