ANNVILLE, Pa. – Senior righty Carley Stoker (Sandy Creek, NY) pitched a complete-game one-hitter and senior third baseman Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven) drove in three runs with the 23^rd and 24^th home runs of her career as the second-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University softball team defeated host and No. 3 seed Lebanon Valley College, 4-1, in the opening game of the NCAA Division III Annville, PA Regional Thursday at the LVC Softball Park.
 
With its 21^st win in its last 23 games, No. 24 nationally-ranked Eastern (29-10) advances to the winners' bracket of the four-team double elimination tournament and will face top-seeded No. 14 nationally-ranked University of Rochester (37-7) Friday in the first game at noon. The Yellow Jackets mercied fourth-seeded Eastern Nazarene College (22-20), 8-0 in six innings in Thursday's second game. Lebanon Valley (32-10) plays an elimination game against Eastern Nazarene Friday at 2:30. Friday's third game between the Eastern-Rochester loser and Lebanon Valley-ENC winner is scheduled for 5 p.m.
 
SanGiovanni hit her sixth and seventh home runs of the season to back Stoker (16-2), who faced the minimum number of batters (15) over the final five innings. She struck out four and walked two in facing just four batters over the minimum. The pitching duel was between two conference Pitchers-of-the-Year in Stoker from the Little East Conference and junior righty Jordan Walter (17-4) from the MAC Commonwealth.
 
SanGiovanni's two-run home run in the bottom of the first plated senior second baseman and Little East Player-of-the-Year Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON), who had doubled to left-center with one out. After the Dutchmen got one back with their only hit of the game – an RBI single by No. 9 batter Danni Holmes with two out in the second – SanGiovanni scored on senior leftfielder Taylor Darby's (South Windsor) suicide squeeze single after opening the fourth inning with the 72^nd hit-by-pitch of her career.
 
Leading 3-1, Eastern closed out the scoring against Walter when SanGiovanni blasted a leadoff home run to left.  It was the second two-home run game in the career of SanGiovanni, whose only other one had come May 8, 2021 against UMass Boston in a 9-1 win in the first game of an LEC home doubleheader. SanGiovanni, the 2022 LEC Player-of-the-Year, ranks fourth all-time at Eastern in home runs.
 
Lebanon Valley junior leadoff hitter Sam Burns – the MAC Commonwealth Player-of-the-Year -- did not get the ball out of the infield against Stoker, grounding out in the first and popping out in the second to Eastern first-year shortstop Emma Marelli (Waterford) and lining into an inning-ending unassisted double play in the fifth to Eastern sophomore first baseman Alexa Boone (Middletown).
 
Each team managed only six baserunners and both teams stranded three.
 
SanGiovanni scored twice and her pinch runner – first-year junior transfer Kaylee Armida (Pine Bush, NY) scored once when Eastern pushed across  its unearned run on SanGiovanni's HBP, a passed ball, Armida's stolen base and Darby's bunt single in the fourth inning that made it 3-1.
 
Eastern junior leadoff hitter Sarah Remillard (Grafton, MA) extended her on-base streak to 23 when she walked on a 3-2 pitch with two out in the fifth and Darby hit in her 15^th straight game with her bunt single in the fourth.

Eastern is seeded second in the NCAA Region II and Rochester first in Region III. Rochester's win over Eastern Nazarene Thursday was its fifth straight. The Yellow Jackets won 24 straight through late April and have won 34 of their last 36, both losses in that stretch by a run to RPI, 4-3 on April 29 and Ithaca College, 2-1 in eight innings May 11. Molly Broccolo has pitched nearly half of the team's innings and is 18-2 with a 0.86 ERA, with four additional pitchers combining on an 18-5 record. Ally Kim is batting .401 with  45 stolen bases, 19  extra-base hits and a .482 on-base percentage. As a team, Rochester has stolen 121 of 136 bases, with Bailey Nicholoff 23-for-25 and Jensen Sminchak 22-for-25.
 
Eastern needs one win to post its 17^th 30-win season (fourth straight). Eastern and Rochester have met only twice previously and split two games. In 2010, Rochester won, 4-2 on opening day in Clermont, FL; in 2012, the Warriors defeated the Yellow Jackets, 6-1, in an elimination game of the NCAA regionals at Clyde Washburne Field. The next day, Eastern lost in the finals of that tournament, 5-0, to Tufts University, which went on to three straight national championships beginning in 2013.