MANSFIELD, Conn. – Senior All-America Alex Zachary's (Enfield) second home run of the game – a game-ending blast with two out and two on in the bottom of the tenth inning – carried the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team to a 9-6 Little East Conference victory over Western Connecticut State University Sunday afternoon at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.

Trailing 6-4, Eastern tied the game on Zachary's two-run home run to center with one out in the seventh, and won it on Zachary's three-run, opposite field blast to left after the first two batters of the tenth had been retired.

With the win, Eastern (17-13, 6-6 LEC) guarantees itself the opportunity to defend last year's LEC tournament championship as one of the six qualifiers to the LEC tournament, which gets underway May 10. Western (14-17, 3-9 LEC), which reached last year's LEC tournament championship round against Eastern, is tied for seventh (last place) but remains in tournament contention with its final two LEC regular-season games scheduled for Friday at 2016 LEC co-champion UMass Boston, which is second in this year's standings.

Zachary, who struck out on a 2-2 pitch from sophomore righty reliever Matt Fasoli with the winning  run on first in the ninth, lofted a one-strike offering from Fasoli over the left field fence with two runners aboard in the tenth as Eastern completed a two-game sweep of Western this season.

Fasoli, who had replaced junior lefty starter Kyle Cole  after Zachary's tying home run in the seventh, stranded five runners over his first three innings (including three in the ninth), then retired the first two batters of the tenth on eight pitches.

Batting ninth in only his fourth start of the year, sophomore shortstop Dale Keller (Oxford) started the tenth-inning rally by walking on a full count, and moved to second on a single by sophomore leadoff hitter Alexander White (West Hartford) to set the stage for Zachary's second home run of the game, sixth of the season and 16 of his two-year Eastern career. Zachary has five homers in his last ten games after managing only one through the first 20.

At left: Nick Rascati lowered his ERA to a staff-best 2.79 and won his third game of the year in three decisions by pitching the final three scoreless innings Sunday against Western Connecticut.

Zachary (five RBI) and sophomore third baseman Alex Parkos (Meriden) drove in all nine Eastern runs, combining for six extra-base hits. Parkos, batting cleanup, reached base in all five at-bats, becoming the eighth player in program history to hit for the cycle. Parkos gave Eastern a 2-0 lead with a two-out RBI double in the first, a two-out RBI triple in the third, a first-pitch, two-out, two-run home run that boosted the Warriors into a 4-1 lead in the fifth and a two-out single in the seventh following Zachary's tying home run. He also was intentionally walked to load the bases with the game tied in the ninth when Fasoli escaped serious trouble by inducing a foul fly to left and an inning-ending ground ball to third.

Trailing 4-1, Western took a short-lived 6-4 lead by batting around and scoring five times on six hits in the seventh, chasing Eastern sophomore righty starter John Parker (Brunswick, ME) in the process. After the first three batters reached on singles, junior leadoff hitter Clete LoRusso drove in two with a bad-hop single into left field, and senior No. 3 hitter EJ Lavoie tied the game with a one-out single. LaRusso came home with the go-ahead run on senior cleanup hitter Frank Vartuli's  double to right and LaJoie scored to make it 6-4 on an infield ground ball.

Sophomore lefty Nick Rascati (Wallingford), who was summoned in a tie game after junior righty Sam Kosterich (Stamford) allowed a leadoff single in the eighth,  allowed only two baserunners in recording his third win in as many decisions. Rascati, who threw 25 of his 40 pitches for strikes, hit LoRusso with two out in the seventh after getting the first two outs after replacing Parker, then retired six in a row until senior Tre Gause's (Brookfield) hard single with two out and none on in the tenth. None of Rascati's nine outs reached the outfield.

Batting ninth, junior third baseman Joe Daigle had three of Western's 11 hits. In addition to his three singles, Daigle forced a tenth inning when he cleanly  fielded a dangerous squibbler with two out and the bases loaded in the ninth and threw out Eastern junior catcher Merlyn Herrera (La Yaquiza, DR) to end the inning.