SALEM, Va. – The Eastern Connecticut State University softball team has clawed its way through the losers' bracket in national tournament play in winning its last three national titles.

And because they were unable to produce in key moments late in the game in their 2022 national tournament opener Thursday night into Friday morning, they will need to do that again if they hope to bring home a sixth national championship.

Against sixth-seeded Trine University (33-11) Friday morning in the resumption of a game that was halted Thursday night with the score tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Eastern was unable to administer the knockout blow in the sixth and seventh innings and lost, 4-2, when Taylor Murdock hit her team-leading seventh home run of the year with one on and none out in the top of the eighth inning that sent the Thunder to their 18th straight win and sent No. 3-ranked and No. 3-seeded Eastern (43-6) tumbling into the losers' bracket of the eight-team, double-elimination tournament at the Moyer Sports Complex.

The rest of Friday's scheduled action following the completion of the Eastern-Trine game was scrubbed, with six games scheduled for Saturday beginning at 9:30 a.m. Eastern looks to remain alive when it takes on seventh-seeded Millikin University (37-8) at 11:30 a.m. in the second game of the day. Millikin was within an out of upending second-seeded Salisbury University before the Sea Gulls rallied for a 6-5 win in nine innings in Thursday's third game. The length of that game, more than likely, prevented the Eastern-Trine contest from finishing before the rain came.

A win over Millikin has the Warriors back in action in Saturday's final game, a scheduled 7:30 p.m. start (likely much later) against the loser of a winners' bracket game Saturday between top-seeded and No. 1 nationally-ranked Christopher Newport University and fifth-seeded Berry College. Berry stunned 2021 national finalist Texas Lutheran University in Thursday's second game, 5-1.

The Warriors had reached the national tournament at Salem, VA by winning three elimination games after a second-round loss to host Kean University at the Union, NJ Regionals last weekend. This time, they will need five wins to hoist their first national championship trophy since 1990.

Trine tied the game Thursday night, 2-2, by scoring a run in the top of the fifth inning on No. 9 hitter Ainsley Phillips' two-out RBI double before the game was halted by rain with Eastern coming to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning in a tie game.

While Eastern had runners in scoring position in the sixth and seventh -- with a fly ball double play cutting down the potential walk-off run in the bottom of the seventh -- Trine junior Adrienne Rosey persevered as the Thunder gained a measure of revenge for a 6-3 loss to Eastern in early March at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Columbus, GA. Rosey shut Eastern out in seven of eight innings, stopping one of the nation's most powerful offenses on five hits while fanning seven and walking four. She threw 73 of her 120 pitches for strikes and standed seven Eastern baserunners.

When play resumed Friday morning in a 2-2 tie, Eastern sophomore All-America pitcher Alexis Michon (Montville) doubled with one out, but Rosey got a strikeout looking and an inning-ending fly ball that was gloved by leftfielder Anna Gill near the left field line. Needing a miracle to survive Eastern's seventh-inning, potential game-winning rally, Trine got it. A hit-by-pitch and infield error on senior All-America pitcher Morgan Bolduk's (Vernon) sacrifice bunt put the winning run 60 feet from home. Rosey got the first out on another fly ball to Gill on the left field line. A walk loaded the bases and the inning came to a stunning ending when Trine centerfielder Ellie Trine caught a fly ball for the second out and her throw to catcher Phillips was ruled (with the help of replay) to have just beaten Eastern rookie Maggie Baker (Hanover, MA) and sent the game into extra innings.

Facing Bolduk, who was summoned to take over for Michon after Phillips' game-tying double in the fifth, Trine singled to open the eighth and Murdock -- who was unable to get the ball out of the infield (two strikeouts) in her first three plate appearances, uncorked a two-run home run on the fourth pitch she saw from Bolduk to give the Thunder the go-ahead runs. Having, in essense out-dueled both of Eastern's All-America pitchers, Rosey completed her 12th game in 16 starts with an uneventful eighth inning, needing four pitches to mow down the heart of the Eastern order.

Graduate rightfielder Alexis Tyrrell (Torrington) had two hits, scored a run and drove in a run but was the only Eastern hitter with multiple hits. Senior All-America third baseman Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven) – the Little East Conference Player-of-the-Year -- reached twice on walks. The cleanup hitter was issued a pass on a 3-2 pitch in the first with Tyrrell on second and first base unoccupied and was put aboard on four pitches while Eastern was scoring scored twice in the third to take a 2-1 lead. Tyrrell and senior leftfielder Carley Stoker (Sandy Creek, NY) both had RBI singles in that inning but the chance at more went by the boards when a second Eastern runner was thrown out at home by Gill in left.