Box Score

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Sophomore rightfielder Jason Claiborn (Prospect), the No. 9 hitter in the lineup, drove in four runs with an infield single and bases-clearing triple and junior righty Billy Oldham (Brookfield) pitched at least six innings for the 11^th time in 14 starts this year as the No. 1-ranked and second-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team opened the 2022 NCAA Division III national tournament with a 10-3 win over seventh-seeded Baldwin Wallace University Friday afternoon at Perfect Game Field.
 
A winner of 19 straight, Eastern (45-3) advances into the winner's bracket and will play its second game of the eight-team, double-elimination tournament Saturday at 8:45 p.m. ET against third-seeded LaGrange College (3-7), which sent sixth-seeded Trinity University, TX (37-12)  into the losers' bracket with a 12-0 victory in Friday's late game which concluded at 12:27 a.m. ET. It wiill be the first meeting between the programs.

The winner of Eastern's four-team bracket – where it is the top seed – will meet the winner of the other bracket in a best-of-three championship series which begins either Monday or Tuesday.
 
Competing in its 13^th national tournament overall and first in 15 years, the Warriors recorded their first national tournament win since downing North Carolina Wesleyan College, 9-8, in the second round of the 2006 tournament.
 
Eastern scored all of its runs in its final three at-bats, managing just six hits in those innings but benefitting from six walks, three hit-by-pitch, three errors and two wild pitches. Seven of the runs were scored by players who reached on a walk, hit-by-pitch or error, with another scoring after reaching on an infield single.
 
Eastern was outhit, 11-8 and left the bases loaded in three consecutive innings but found enough timely hits and got plenty of help from Baldwin Wallace (37-11), whose four pitchers issued eight walks, hit three batters and threw two wild pitches.
 
Trailing 1-0, the Warriors came up empty in the fifth after loading the bases with none out in the fifth but finally broke through in the sixth despite getting only one hit – an RBI single from senior DH Jack Rich (Meriden) which tied the game. The first three batters reached safely on two walks and a hit batter before Rich stroked his game-tying single to right after falling behind in the count, 0-2. A bases loaded walk coaxed by graduate first baseman Josh Tower (Auburn, MA) gave Eastern the lead for good, 2-1, a dropped throw at the plate on a fielder's choice made it 3-1 and a wild pitch made it a three-run game.
 
Eastern made it 6-2 on RBI singles by Tower and Claiborn (infield) in the seventh and the Warriors expanded a three-run lead by scoring four runs in the bottom of the eighth after there were two out and one on thanks to a walk, hit-by-pitch and error  that set up Claiborn's bases-clearing triple to right-center.
 
Oldham (11-2) allowed eight hits with ten strikeouts (his seventh game of double-digit strikeouts) and left after throwing 122 pitches in favor of senior lefty Aidan Dunn (Westfield, MA) with two on and one out and Eastern leading 6-1. Dunn, making his first appearance after 11 days off, gave up an RBI single after getting the second out and after Mark Mohnickey's RBI double in the eighth, senior All-America righty Bryan Albee (Killingly) got the call and retired the final five batters on four infield ground balls and an infield popup. With 11 wins, Albee leads Division III in victories without a loss.
 
Rich, Tower and Claiborn each had two hits, with the heart of the order totaling eight runs. Senior All-America third baseman Luke Broadhurst (Stafford), senior All-America catcher Matt Malcom (East Lyme), and graduate All-America leftfielder John Mesagno (Tappan, NY) each scored twice, as did Rich. Junior leadoff hitter Zach Donahue (South Windsor) reached three times on walks and Broadhurst was aboard twice on free passes and Mesagno twice on hit-by-pitch. Tower reached four times on his two RBI singles, a walk and hit-by-pitch.

Bagdasarian extended his team-best hitting streak to 19 by singling on a full count with one out in the first, but starter Dawson Gabe (4-4) got Broadhurst on a deep drive to left and Malcom on an infield ground ball to escape the first inning. In addition to Bagdasarian, extending double-digit on-base streaks were Donahue (15), Mesagno (11) and Broadhurst (11).

While four Yellow Jacket errors handed Eastern five unearned runs, the Warriors played perfect defense for the 17th time this year and improved their fielding mark in ten Little East Conference and NCAA tournament games to .982, moving ahead of last year's record .971 fielding average with a current percentage of .972. Epitomizing Eastern's defensive excellence was the play made by senior centerfielder Ryan Bagdasarian (Glastonbury), who doubled up BWU All-America Luke Vonderhaar at first after firing a one-hop strike to first on cleanup hitter Bryce Holt's hard drive, with Tower completing the play by stretching to haul in the throw to end the fifth inning and keep the deficit at one run. It was the fifth assist of the year for Bagdasarian, who has commited only one error over the last two years.

The play in center came on one of the few balls allowed out of the infield by Eastern pitching. Oldham, who got nine of the first 12 outs of the game on strikeouts, recorded only four of his 19 outs on outfield fly balls. In addition to Bagdasarian's fifth-inning play, Claiborn gloved a routine fly ball in right for the second out of the third, and Mesagno recorded consecutive outs in left with the first one ending the fourth and leaving a leadoff runner on first, then tracking down All-America shortstop Alex Ludwick's long drive near the fence for the first out of the fifth.