Box Score  CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Unbeaten senior right-hander Brian Albee (Killingly) preserved a 4-3 victory over No. 4 nationally-ranked LaGrange College by retiring the most dangerous hitter in Division III on an infield ground ball for the final out as No. 1 nationally-ranked and second-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University moved within one victory of advancing to the best-of-three championship series of the NCAA national baseball tournament Sunday at Perfect Game Field

SUNDAY EVENING'S SCHEDULED GAME AGAINST LaGRANGE COLLEGE IN THE BRACKET TWO CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES WAS POSTPONED TO MONDAY AT 2:15 p.m. ET DUE TO RAIN. AFTER LOSING TO EASTERN EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, LaGRANGE STAYED ALIVE WITH A 15-3 ELIMINATION GAME WIN OVER TRINITY UNIVERSITY (TX) SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

A winner of 20 straight, Eastern (46-3) emerged from the three hour and four minute winners' bracket contest that ended just after 3 a.m. EDT Sunday morning by winning its first two games in the national tournament for the first time in 18 years. With the win over third-seeded LaGrange (43-8) – which coming off a 12-0 win over sixth-seeded Trinity University (TX) in its Friday opener – Eastern remains the only unbeaten team in its four-team Bracket Two in the double elimination tournament and will play Sunday at 8:45 p.m. ET against the winner of an earlier elimination game between LaGrange and Trinity.
 
Fourth-seeded Salisbury University is the only remaining unbeaten team in Bracket One after defeating top-seeded Marietta College, 7-5 in 11 innings Saturday and will play Sunday at 5:30 p.m. ET against the winner of an earlier elimination game between Marietta and fifth-seeded Wis.-Stevens Point.

Against LaGrange, Eastern improved to 4-0 in one-run games in conference and NCAA tournament play when graduate righty Tommy Benincaso (Norwalk), senior lefty Aidan Dunn (Westfield, MA) and Albee combined to preserve the victory after the Panthers had cut a four-run deficit to the final one-run margin by scoring three runs on five hits in the seventh.
 
Replacing Benincaso (7-0) with a run in and two runners on the seventh, Dunn gave up consecutive RBI singles (none of which were hit hard) but avoided further damage and kept Eastern in front by a run when he struck out left-handed cleanup hitter Jack Layrisson on a 2-2 pitch with the go-ahead runners aboard. Dunn competed his job by getting left-handed-hitting Cael Chatham on a 1-2 pitch for the first out of the eighth, giving way to Albee, the second-winningest pitcher in Division III and the winningest unbeaten (11-0) one. After getting a foul popup to senior All-America third baseman Luke Broadhurst (Stafford) for the second out, Albee was touched for consecutive singles before leaving the go-ahead runners on base by producing another foul out, this one to All-America senior catcher Matt Malcom (East Lyme).
 
Albee needed only seven pitches to induce fly balls to senior centerfielder Ryan Bagdasarian (Glastonbury) and senior second baseman Noah Plantamuro (Bristol) for the first two outs of the ninth, then got first-team All-America third baseman Joe Ruth to ground up the middle, where junior shortstop Zach Donahue (South Windsor) handled the bouncer moving to his left, with his throw from behind the second base bag arriving just ahead of the left-handed-hitting Ruth, the throw hauled in with a long stretch from graduate first baseman Josh Tower (Auburn, MA). The save was the fifth this year for Albee.
 
In his fourth post-season start, Benincaso pitched at least six innings for the eighth time in his last nine starts, striking out a career-high nine and allowing only seven hits and one walk in 6 2/3 innings.
 
In his 106-pitch effort (67 of them for strikes), Benincaso struck out two batters in the fourth and fifth innings and needed only eight pitches in the sixth and carried a 4-0 lead into the seventh. He struck out two in the seventh but allowed three hits, the final one by leadoff hitter Rhett Mixon – an outfield bloop – that plated LaGrange's first run and prompted a call to Dunn. Dunn gave up an opposite-field RBI single to third-team All-America centerfielder McKinley Erves for the Panther's second run and a seeing-eye bouncer up the middle by Ruth – who set an NCAA record this year with 104 hits -- for his nation-leading 83^rd RBI of the year.

In the first meeting between the programs, LaGrange had entered the game having won 12 of 13, the only loss a 9-8 verdict against Chapman University in the LaGrange, GA Super Regional May 28 that forced a deciding game in the best-of-three-series, won by the Panthers, 4-2. LaGrange is competing in the nationals after suffering the death of two of the team's players in an automobile accident the night the Panthers defeated North Carolina Wesleyan to win the USA South Conference tournament championship three weeks ago.
 
The Warriors had appeared headed somewhat unchallenged to their 11^th straight conference and NCAA tournament win when they scored three runs in the second and tacked on another in the seventh. Donahue drove in the first two runs of the game with a triple over the head of leftfielder Gabriel Pallo -- who misjudged the trajectory of the long drive -- in the second inning, and scored on Bagdasarian's sacrifice fly. While Benincaso was in charge on the mound, Eastern added another run in the seventh. Bagdasarian singled with one out, moved to second on Broadhurst's infield single and while tagging up and heading for third on a shallow fly ball to right, raced home when the throw from first baseman Layrisson – who made a standout play for the out -- sailed past third.
                                                             
In addition to his sacrifice fly, Bagdasarian reached three times on two hits and a walk – extending his hitting streak to 21 – while Donahue had two hits and Broadhurst reached three times on his infield single, a walk and hit-by-pitch.
 
The flawless defense was the second straight at the nationals, fifth in the LEC and NCAA post-season and 18^th this year. The Warriors have committed less than two errors in ten of 11 LEC and NCAA post-season games and are fielding .984 to raise their season average to .972 that equals the program record set last year.

At Cedar Rapids, sophomore rightfielder and No. 9 hitter Jason Claiborn (Prospect) -- who had a bases-clearing triple in Friday's opening 10-3 win over Baldwin Wallace University -- joins Bagdasarian with a team-leading .375 (3-for-8) batting average. Broadhurst is batting just .167 but his .500 on-base average tops the team, with Donahue (.455) next. Tower has been perfect at first on 14 chances and Malcom has collected 23 putouts without an error behind the plate and Donahue and Plantamuro have combined for nine assists without an error and turned a 6-4-3 double play that ended the second inning against LaGrange following a leadoff single to Chatham and a Benincaso strikeout.