DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Senior All-America Morgan Bolduk (Vernon) moved into fifth place all-time with her 16^th career shutout with a three-hitter in a 4-0 opening win and the No. 8 nationally-ranked Eastern Connecticut State University softball team went on to a Little East Conference sweep of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Tuesday afternoon at the UMD Softball Complex.
 
In the second game, first-year sophomore transfer Alexis Michon (Montville) – the Little East leader in wins and strikeouts -- improved to 9-1 with her sixth straight win in a 5-1 victory. With Eastern leading, 3-1, a fourth-inning home run by senior catcher Lindsay Chubbuck spoiled Michon's bid for a third shutout in ten starts.

Since starting the season 4-for-20, senior All-America first baseman Brooke Matyasovsky (Orange) has reached safely in the last 17 games after singling in each game and also walking against UMass. She has hit safely in her last ten games to raise her batting average from .182 to .343.
 
Eastern visits Wesleyan University Friday at 3 p.m. in a non-conference doubleheader, looking to extend a streak of seven straight wins against the Cardinals.
 
Game 1: Eastern Conn. 4, UMass Dartmouth 0
 
Bolduk (4-1) outdueled 2021 second-team All-LEC senior pitcher Jill Richards (7-3), who had shut out Plymouth State University in UMass Dartmouth's (14-6-1, 2-2 LEC) season-opening LEC home sweep of Plymouth State University Saturday.
 
In her 49^th career start, Bolduk allowed only one hit after the second inning while fanning eight and walking three and allowing only two balls out of the infield. Bolduk moved ahead of two-time All-America and two-time national champion Kim Durocher into fifth place all-time in shutouts and also moved into a tie for eighth all-time with her 36^th win in 51 career decisions.
 
Eastern (18-4, 3-1 LEC), which swept UMass Dartmouth in doubleheaders on consecutive days last year, scored three unearned runs in the third when it collected three of its game total of six hits and was aided by an error, and added an insurance run in the fourth.
 
The first two runs scored on a throwing error on a ball off the bat of graduate All-America centerfielder Cassie Woods (Mystic), and junior leftfielder Taylor Darby's (South Windsor) sacrifice fly plated the third run.  Senior catcher Carolyn Biel (Wallingford) had walked to open the third and moved up on No. 9 hitter Alexis Tyrrell's (Torrington) bunt single. First-year player Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) scored her 11^th run of the season – all as a pinch-runner – on the throwing error to make it 1-0, and Tyrrell followed for the second run before Woods came home on Darby's sacrifice fly to record her team-leading 23^rd run of the season.
 
Junior second baseman Alyssa Vilchez' (Brampton, ON) leadoff walk, a sacrifice bunt by Biel and another error accounted for the run in the fourth.
 
UMass Dartmouth, which won its first seven and lost only two of its first 15, couldn't break through against Bolduk despite putting two runners on in the first and two on in the second. Bolduk got a swinging strikeout to end the first and a ground ball to Vilchez at second to end the second. Only three of the final 20 batters reached against Bolduk: two-out walks in the third and sixth, and a leadoff single in the fifth.
 
Outside of singles in the second and fifth, no ball reached the outfield. Matyasovsky was credited with 12 putouts at first and Biel seven behind the plate.
 
Game 2: Eastern Conn. 5, UMass Dartmouth 1
 
As they did in Game 1, the Warriors scored all of the runs they would need during a three-run fourth inning, with an error leading to two unearned runs. With one run in, Tyrell made it 2-0 with an infield ground ball and Woods drove in sophomore second baseman Sarah Remillard (Grafton, MA) with a single up the middle. Biel's first home run – a two-out solo shot – made it 4-1 in the sixth and Michon's sacrifice fly to right closed out the scoring in the to of the seventh.
 
Michon fanned sixth without a walk and has now struck out 77 and walked only 11 in 61 1/3 innings, lowering her ERA to 1.26 in the process. Michon got the better of UMass sophomore Kaitlyn Shirshac, who lost for only the second time against seven wins. Shirshac gave up only three earned runs on eight hits through six innings before Richards got the final three outs.