MANSFIELD, Conn. – Two days after delivering a game-winning two-run single in the eighth inning, senior captain John Mesagno (Tappan, NY) hit a game-tying two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning, then drilled a dramatic walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth as the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team moved into the best-of-three Little East Conference championship series with a 9-5 victory over the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Saturday afternoon at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.
 
In its three-team pod, top-seeded Eastern (31-4) opened with a 7-6 victory over fifth-seeded and three-time defending LEC tournament champion University of Massachusetts Boston Thursday. Fourth-seeded UMass Dartmouth (11-15) rebounded from a 2-1, 10 inning loss Thursday to UMass Boston by crushing the Beacons, 10-1, earlier Saturday to advance to the championship round, where it needed two wins over Eastern to advance to Thursday's best-of-three championship series against second-seeded University of Southern Maine.
 

Eastern hosts Southern Maine (29-8) in the best-of-three Thursday, with two games beginning at 1 p.m. A decisive game, if needed, is scheduled for Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern has won nine LEC tournament titles, Southern Maine five. The Warriors' last championship came in 2016 before UMass Boston won an unprecedented three in a row. Southern Maine last won in 2015, downing Eastern at home in the final,  one year after the Warriors eliminated USM in the championship game at home in 2014.
 
As they did two days earlier against UMB, the Warriors erased a 5-0 deficit after five-and-one-half innings by scoring all of their runs in their final at-bats.
 
After singling in the tying and winning runs in the eighth inning Thursday against UMass Boston,  Mesagno slammed an 0-1 pitch for a one-out two-run, game-tying home run in the eighth against the Corsairs. In the ninth, Eastern loaded the bases on junior catcher Matt Malcom's (East Lyme) leadoff double (that was made possible when the UMD rightfielder lost his footing), a single by junior shortstop Owen Marica (Haddam) and a one-out intentional walk. Mesagno followed with his ninth home run of the season to left field on the only pitch delivered in the game by UMD senior righty Tucker Hetherman, who was summoned to issue the intentional walk to Eastern freshman Jason Claiborn (Prospect).
 
The season-ending loss spoiled a brilliant starting effort by senior righty Logan Maitland, who shut out the Warriors on just two singles through five innings, carrying a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning, when Eastern got two back when LEC leading hitter Luke Broadhurst (Stafford) hit his ninth-home run of the season with two outs after Mesagno had reached on a one-out infield single.
 
With Maitland gone in place of graduate righty Robbie Carrillo, Eastern got another run back in the seventh to make it 5-3 on Malcom's sixth home run of the season coming off the first pitch he saw from the new pitcher. Claiborn, the team's leadoff hitter and only freshman starter, set up Mesagno's tying home run in the eighth with a leadoff single.
 
For the second straight game, Eastern sophomore righty Nathan Furino (East Haven) was credited with the win in relief. After fanning two in 1 1/3 hitless innings Thursday, Furino (3-0) was summoned  with Eastern trailing 5-3 in the top of the eighth Saturday. Furino got the final six outs, striking out two in the eighth and getting No. 3 hitter DJ Perron  to hit into a double play started by Marica at short to keep the game tied in the top of the ninth.
 
UMass Dartmouth, which had pounded three UMass Boston pitchers earlier Saturday for 12 hits, scored single runs in three separate innings to move out to a 3-0 lead against unbeaten (4-0) Eastern sophomore righty Billy Oldham (Brookfield), and made it 5-0 with two more in the sixth when it knocked out the Eastern starter.
 
Junior centerfielder Tyler Lyons, batting ninth, homered with two out in the third for the first run of the game, Perron homered with one out in the fourth to make it 2-0, an infield error made it 3-0 in the fifth, and an error on a failed pickoff and junior DH Zak Souza's two-out double expanded UMD's lead to 5-0 in the sixth.
 
Mesagno finished with three hits and six RBI and scored three runs, while Malcom had two hits, scored twice and drove in a run. Lyons was UMD's' only player with more than one hit. He had two hits, scored two runs and drove in the run with the third-inning home run.

This year, Furino has appeared in 15 games out of the bullpen and has four saves and a 1.44 ERA  to go along with a 3-0 record in 25 innings. Teams are batting .174 against him (.146 with runners in scoring position), with only two of their 16 hits going for extra bases.

Now 21-2 at home, Eastern brings a ten-game win streak into the best-of-three series Thursday with Southern Maine (29-8), which is the last squad to defeat the Warriors when the Huskies took the second game of a non-conference doubleheader, 4-3, at Gorham, ME on April 24.  The teams split two doubleheaders during the regular season, with USM's 7-2 win at the Eastern Baseball Stadium April 23 the Warriors' only LEC regular-season loss in 16 games.

Eastern is ranked first in New England and 16th nationally, USM fourth in New England and 18th nationally.

Southern Maine has won 14 in a row, defeating Rhode Island College twice (2-1, 12-1) to capture its pod this week. The Huskies' last losses came on consecutive days to Eastern, 10-9, at the Eastern Baseball Stadium in the second game of the LEC twinbill, and 7-1 in the first game of the non-conference doubleheader the next day at Ed Flaherty Field.