Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
TUCSON, Ariz.  – Graduate player Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON) had a win and a save and drove in four runs as the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team won two games Friday and ended its ten-game spring trip at Lincoln Park on a five-game winning streak.

In the first game, Eastern (7-3) built a 6-0 lead and withstood St. Catherine University's (6-9) seventh-inning five-run rally by ending the game with its eighth double play of the season in a 6-5 victory.
In the second game where the teams combined to score  six runs in three different innings, Eastern rallied from six runs down after the first inning by scoring 11 runs in the second and third innings and pushing across ten unearned runs in a 17-8 victory over Sewanee University.

Warriors Escape Against St. Catherine

Against St. Catherine, Vilchez (4-2) recorded all 21 outs but was not credited with a complete game. The righty was lifted in the seventh inning after giving up hits to the first two batters, but returned after three consecutive batters were walked. Vilchez allowed two consecutive singles upon her return – including a two-run single that made it 6-5 with no one out – but with two runners aboard, got a fly ball to junior centerfielder Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) for the first out and a double play fly ball to first-year leftfielder Kaley Laird (Bristol), whose throw to second base caught Annabelle Cook off the bag to end the game.

Vilchez allowed seven hits and a walk and struck out six and was given an early lead when the Warriors scored three runs in the first inning on five hits, including junior second baseman Maddi Sauve's (Mansfield) first career home run – a two-run blast. Vilchez drove in the first run of the inning with a single after sophomore shortstop Emma Marelli (Waterford) and senior outfielder Sarah Remillard (Grafton, MA) had opened with infield singles.

In a two-run second inning, Laird opened with a bunt single, stole second and scored on junior first baseman Maggie Rubeck's (Easthampton, MA), and Remillard's ground ball later plated Rubeck. The Warriors made it 6-0 with another run in the sixth when first-year pinch hitter Julia Boya (Coventry) walked, stole two bases and came home on Rubeck's opposite-field single to right.
 
Against Sewanee, Vilchez drives in three runs, pitches three hitless innings

Vilchez had a three-run triple in a six-run fifth inning and retired all nine batters she faced to record her fifth career save (tied for seventh all-time) as the third of three Eastern pitchers in the game.
Leading 11-8, the Warriors tacked on six insurance runs in the fifth on four hits, two walks and an infield error.  Vilchez and Rubeck each stroked run-scoring triples in the inning, with Remillard (single) and Sauve (ground ball) each driving in a run.

With Eastern leading 11-6, Vilchez was summoned with the bases loaded and none out in the third and induced three ground balls that resulted in two runs and closed it out with two more hitless innings, fanning two and allowing only one ball out of the infield.

Remillard had two hits, drove in three runs and scored two in the 13-hit attack, while Rubeck had two hits, drove in two runs and scored two runs, and Laird scored three times and Baker twice.
Eastern opens its northern season March 23 with a non-conference doubleheader at Springfield College and opens at home March 24 with a non-conference doubleheader against WPI at Clyde Washburne Field.