Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
MANSFIELD, Conn. – Graduate student Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON) pitched a complete-game five-hitter and the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team broke an early tie with three unearned runs in the second inning to post a 7-1 non-conference victory over WPI in the first game of a doubleheader in its 2024 home-opener Tuesday afternoon at Clyde Washburne Field.
 
In the nightcap, WPI (4-5-1) freshman Kaitlyn Barr shut down Eastern (8-5-1) on three singles -- surviving five walks – and freshman matcher Callie Allison doubled, tripled and drove in three runs in the Engineers' 9-1 win.
 
Eastern Conn. 7, WPI 1
 
Vilchez (5-3) won her 22^nd career decision in the opener, pitching her fifth complete game in eight starts this year and the Warriors had eight hits off two WPI pitchers and used two three-run innings to pull away.
 
With the score tied 1-1, Eastern scored three times in the second inning on two hits, two infield errors and a wild pitch, and broke it open in the fourth with three more runs on three hits and four walks.
 
Vilchez fanned five and shut out the Engineers after a game-opening hit batter, stolen base, and cleanup hitter Riley O'Brien's two-out single gave WPI an early 1-0 lead. Vilchez retired 11 of the last 12 batters she faced and allowed more than one hit in an inning only once in the game, when she stranded two runners in scoring position in the fourth with an inning-ending strikeout.
 
In Eastern's three-run second inning, two runs scored on first-year leftfielder Kaley Laird's (Bristol) sacrifice bunt and throwing error and another on a wild pitch. With the bases loaded in the fourth, junior second baseman Maddi Sauve (Mansfield) drove in the first run with an infield single, a second scored when sophomore catcher Maddy Bowen (Hudson, NH) was walked, and the final run crossed the plate on junior first baseman Maggie Rubeck's (Easthampton, MA) RBI single.

WPI 9, Eastern Conn. 1
 
Barr was masterful in her third complete game in five starts, and the Engineers backed her with nine hits – four of them for extra bases – off three Eastern pitchers. Like Vilchez in the first game, Barr shut out her opponent after surrendering a run in the first inning on Vilchez' RBI single that scored sophomore shortstop Emma Marelli (Waterford), who had opened with a walk and was sacrificed to second by Laird.
 
Following Vilchez' single in the first, Barr allowed only two hits – a leadoff single by Sauve in the fourth and Rubeck's infield single in the seventh. Twelve of her 21 outs came on routine fly balls.
 
WPI scored four runs in the third inning – chasing Eastern junior lefty starter Alexa Boone (Middletown) in the process – on four hits and two walks, with No. 3 hitter Emma Nagy plating the first (and tying) run with a double. Junior Shaina Lazarus drove in a run with a single, Allison another one with a bases-loaded walk, and sophomore Elizabeth Jordan the final one on an infield ground ball.
 
On the day, senior rightfielder Sarah Remillard (Grafton, MA) reached five times with two hits and three walks, moving to within six hits of 100 in her career. Graduate third baseman Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven) had one hit in the doubleheader to move to within eight hits of becoming the fourth player in program history with 200 hits. SanGiovanni was also hit by a pitch for the 77^th time in her career with two out in the third inning of the nightcap, moving her to within four of breaking the ten-year-old Division III career record of 80 set by Amanda Clark of the University of Redlands from 2011-14.
 
Marelli had three putouts and five assists on the day to remain perfect at shortstop this year on 57 chances.
 
Two-time defending champion Eastern opens defense of the Little East Conference regular season Saturday at 2023 LEC tournament champion University of Massachusetts Dartmouth at 1 p.m. The Warriors (31-1 in the last two LEC regular seasons), the unanimous pre-season LEC favorite this year, were beaten twice on the final day of last year's LEC tournament as UMass Dartmouth won its first LEC tournament title and denied Eastern a fourth straight championship.