MANSFIELD, Conn. --  Playing at home as the No. 1 tournament seed for the first time in seven years, the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team erased a  five-run deficit by scoring all of its runs in its final three at-bats to post a 7-6 victory over three-time defending tournament champion University of Massachusetts Boston on the opening day of the 2021 Little East Conference Baseball Tournament Thursday afternoon at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.
 
Now 20-2 at home and a winner of nine straight, Eastern (30-4) plays its second game in the three-team double-elimination tournament Saturday at 4:30 p.m. against the winner of Saturday's 1 p.m. elimination game between No. 5 seed UMass Boston (10-8) and No. 4 seed University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (11-13).  
 
An Eastern loss Saturday forces a final game for the tournament championship Monday at 1 p.m. The pod's winner advances to a best-of-three showdown next Thursday with the winner of another pod being hosted this week by No. 2 seed University of Southern Maine, with the best-of-three winner moving on to the NCAA tournament.
 
UMass Boston edged UMass Dartmouth, 2-1 in ten innings in Thursday's first game before facing Eastern an hour later.
 
UMass Boston chased Eastern once-beaten right-handed starter Josh Vincent (New London) after three innings by scoring four runs on three hits and two errors in the second and adding another on cleanup hitter Craig Corlis' sacrifice fly in the third.
 
While Eastern senior righties John Parker (Brunswick ME) and Bryan Albee (Killingly) were limiting the Beacons to one run on four hits in 4 1/3 innings, Eastern chipped away with three runs in the sixth and two in the seventh before scoring the go-ahead runs in the eighth on senior captain John Mesagno's (Tappan, NY) two-strike single to center.
 
Sophomore righty Nathan Furino (East Haven) picked up his second win in two decisions to go along with four saves. Furino took over for Albee with Eastern trailing 6-5 in the eighth and got a fly ball to left field to strand two runners. Two defensive plays by senior centerfielder Ryan Bagdasarian (Glastonbury) helped the Warriors escape that inning with only that one-run deficit. Bagdasarian got the first out of the inning on a throw to second base that forced a runner on an apparent shallow single to center and he followed by throwing behind the runner to second base on a single for the second out.
 
Furino retired the first two batters of the ninth -- the first coming when junior second baseman Noah Plantamuro (Bristol) snared a line drive off the bat of leadoff hitter Ben Irvine with a perfectly-timed leap -- then got a called strikeout to leave the tying run on first in the form of No. 3 hitter Curtis Tiron, who had kept UMB's hopes alive with a two-out single to center.

Eastern was limited to one hit through four innings by UMass Boston senior righty starter Tylor Arruda (New Bedford, MA), but chased the starter by scoring its first three runs in the sixth thanks to the bottom third of the order. Junior catcher Matt Malcom (East Lyme) sent in the first run with a sacrifice fly, and junior shortstop Owen Marica (Haddam) and junior second baseman Plantamuro followed with run-scoring singles that knocked out Arruda.
 
Trailing 6-3, Eastern pulled to within a run in the seventh. Mesagno led off with a double and scored on senior cleanup hitter Luke Broadhurst's (Stafford) one-out single and with two outs, Bagdasarian doubled home Broadhurst but was gunned down at third to end the inning.

Batting ninth, Plantamuro had three hits, singling in the three-run sixth and in the two-run eight. In the middle of the infield, Plantamuro and Marica combined for four putouts and four assists. In addition to batting .343, Plantamuro has a .989 fielding percentage (one error on 87 chances). Marica is batting .346 with a .950 fielding average on 119 chances with a team-high 81 assists.
 
The win gives Eastern its 31^st 30-win season, first since  2014.

Game 1
Massachusetts Boston 2, Massachusetts Dartmouth 1 (10 inn.)

In contrast to a pair of high-scoring regular-season games that had each team winning one, six pitchers combined on a nine-hitter Thursday, with the fifth-seeded Beacons pushing across an unearned run in the top of the tenth inning to send the fourth-seeded Corsairs into the losers' bracket.
 
In his fourth start of the season, UMass Boston (10-7) righty sophomore starter Alex Amalfi shut down UMD on three hits and one run over the first nine innings and gained his first win after two losses when the Beacons pushed across an unearned run in the top of the tenth on a leadoff walk, single, throwing error and sophomore shortstop Gianni Zarrilli's sacrifice fly. Sophomore righty Dillon Ryan struck out the first two batters in a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save.
 
Despite being held to six hits by four UMD pitchers, UMass Boston threatened often with the help of nine walks, with both of its runs reaching base thanks to leadoff walks. The Beacons stranded 14 runners, 11 in scoring position.
 
Two walks and a hit batter loaded the bases for UMB in the first and senior cleanup hitter Craig Corlis singled to center to make it 1-0. Amalfi faced the minimum nine batters through three, and survived sophomore rightfielder Dj Perron's  two-out triple in the fourth by getting an inning-ending ground ball to short before the Corsairs finally tied the game in the fifth. Senior first baseman Jose Vasquez doubled to lead off the inning, was sacrificed to second by graduate catcher Mitch Baker and scored on a wild pitch on a strikeout.

Freshman No. 9 hitter Matthew Klet opened the UMD sixth with a double but was pegged at third for the first out and Amalfi proceeded to retire his final 12 batters in order before giving way to Ryan on the long end of a 2-1 lead.
 
UMass Dartmouth sophomore righty starter Ryan Qualey and graduate righty Robbie Carrillo combined on a five-hitter and allowed only one run through nine innings, fanning ten and walking seven but neither figured in the decision.