MANSFIELD, Conn. – For the third time this season, the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team collected more than 20 hits in a game, and in a ten-run seventh inning, set a program record for extra bases and tied the record for triples on the way to a 19-0 non-conference victory over New England College Tuesday afternoon in the 2024 home-opener at the Eastern Baseball Stadium.
 
Nine of Eastern's 22 hits in the game went for extra bases (two doubles, four triples, three home runs) as the Warriors (7-5) eased to their sixth straight win following a 1-5 start. It marked the ninth time in program history that the team had four triples, the first time in 13 seasons.
 
New England (1-13) was limited to eight singles by four pitchers, with first-year sophomore lefty transfer Justin Marks (Beacon Falls) fanning an Eastern-best 11 batters in his second start (fourth appearance) and giving up five hits and one walk and departing after five innings with a 6-0 lead. Junior righty Mike Furgalack (Southington) closed out the team's first shutout of the season by fanning the side after hitting the first batter that he faced in the ninth.
 
In the ten-run seventh, Eastern sent 15 batters to the plate, with six of the hits good for extra bases. The 22 total bases in the inning (three triples, two home runs, one double and three singles) broke the 36-year-old program record of 20 total bases, set on April 20, 1988 against Wesleyan University, and the three triples tied the 14-year-old mark set in 2009 and equalled in 2010. In the inning, the first six batters reached safely with five hits and a walk, and all came around to score.
 
Senior Josh Cofrancesco (Southington) recorded his second straight four-hit game with a double, triple and two singles to boost his average to .400. He scored three times and drove in three runs. Senior No. 3 hitter Ryan Parent (Southington) was 3-for-3 with a sacrifice fly to lift his team-best batting average to .441. He plated three runs and scored one.
 
Batting ninth, senior Jason Claiborn (Prospect) had his first four-hit game of the year, raising his season average 72 points by going 4-for-5 with three runs score.
 
In all six players registered two or more hits. Leadoff hitter Zach Donahue (South Windsor), a senior, reached base three four times and scored four runs and also drove in two. Donahue hit a two-run home run in the seventh soon after junior Ray Leonzi (Trumbull) belted a three-run home run on the first pitch from reliever Chistopher Chagnon in that inning. As a late-inning replacement for Cofrancesco in left, senior Mason Balmer (North Haven) singled and scored in the seventh and belted a three-run home run in the eighth. The homer was Balmer's third in two games and ties him for the team leader in that department with first-year catcher Ian Moser, with four. Balmer raised his average 79 percentage points to .400.
 
Batting cleanup, first-year player Ian Moser (Bellingham, MA) had the first triple in the seventh inning (driving in a run and later scoring) while senior Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) and junior Hank Penders (Wethersfield) also tripled in the inning in the fifth spot in the order. Soriano's triple following that of Moser and Pender added a two-run triple batting for Soriano nine batters later in the inning.
 
Eastern opens its Little East Conference season Friday, hosting VTSU Castleton in a 2 p.m. doubleheader. The games were originally scheduled for Saturday.