MANSFIELD, Conn. -- One of the nation's top-hitting teams with an average over .400, top-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University was limited to six hits but was aided by two errors, three walks and a hit batsman to subdue sixth-seeded Keene State College in scratching out a 4-2 victory Thursday afternoon at Clyde Washburne Field to advance to the Little East Conference best-of-three championship round.
Ranked sixth nationally, Eastern (28-2) had averaged more than ten hits and had won by an average of nearly seven runs in four regular-season wins over Keene (8-23), but was handcuffed by Keene sophomore righty Olivia Albert Thursday, but scored three runs in the bottom of the fourth on two hits, a sacrifice fly, an error and hit-by-pitch to break a 1-1 tie and go on to its seventh straight win and improve to 19-1 at home this year.
Defending tournament champion Eastern visits top-seeded University of Southern Maine (31-2-1) in a best-of-three series Saturday beginning at 1 p.m. to determine the LEC tournament champion and NCAA qualifier. USM defeated fifth-seeded Castleton University, 4-1 Tuesday and erased an early four-run deficit to trim Massachusetts Dartmouth 10-8, Thursday to win its pod.
Eastern has won five LEC titles in the last ten years. Southern Maine looks for its first championship since winning the first contested tournament title in 1998. The Huskies have finished second four times since that championship, most recently in 2006.
Eastern had advanced to the championship round of its pod Thursday with a 3-1 win over third-seeded Plymouth State University Tuesday while Keene rebounded from an 8-3 loss to Plymouth in Tuesday's first game to defeat the Panthers for the first time after five losses this year and eliminate Plymouth, 9-5, Tuesday night behind Albert's complete-game effort and a 17-hit attack which featured three triples, two home runs and two doubles.
On Thursday, Keene knocked out LEC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Carley Stoker (Sandy Creek, NY) (she would return the next inning) when it scored a run on a hit, two walks and a hit-by-pitch in the first inning, but LEC Player-of-the-Year
Brooke Matyasovsky (Orange) came on to leave the bases loaded.
After Eastern tied the score with a run in the second on a leadoff single by Stoker, two walks and No. 9 hitter
Alyssa Vilchez' (Brampton, Ont.) ground ball, the Warriors scratched out three runs in the fourth on a leadoff hit-by-pitch, two hits, and an error on a sacrifice bunt.
In that fourth inning, leadoff batter
Cassie Woods (Mystic) extended her consecutive on-base streak to 22 in 22 games with an RBI single to snap the 1-1 tie, freshman second baseman
Sarah Remillard (Grafton) scored on senior rightfielder
Alexis Tyrrell's (Torrington) sacrifice fly to left, and Matyasovsky drove in her team-leading 43
rd run with a double to left-center to make it 4-1.
Stoker had returned to the mound with Eastern trailing 1-0 to start the second inning, but the Owls knocked her out again when they scored a run in the fifth to cut the Eastern lead to 4-2.A leadoff single by junior leftfielder Kylie Frank and a one-out walk to cleanup hitter Albert and a wild pitch put runners on second and third, and senior DP Alexis Blanchette plated a run with a ground ball to junior shortstop
Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven), who prevented additional damage one batter later when she fielded freshman first baseman Megan Blanchett's hot smash to her glove side to end the inning.
Down 4-2, Keene threatened again in its last at-bat but stranded its ninth and tenth runners of the game as Eastern advanced. With one out, junior third baseman Meghan Moran and Albert singled and both runners moved up with two out on a ground ball to first before Matyasovsky got Megan Blanchette on a hard ground ball to Remillard at second to end the game.
Fielding at .968 as a team, Eastern played perfect defense for the fifth time in its last eight games, commiting only one in each of those other three.
Stoker (15-0) and Matyasovsky each gave up four hits. Matyasovsky gained her first career save with 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. Two of the runs charged to Albert were unearned, who finished with a complete-game six-hitter. She fanned two and walked three.
