Box Score 1 | Box Score 2
MANSFIELD, Conn. --  Graduate righty Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON) retired 13 straight batters en a route to a complete-game, 7-0 shutout over Western Connecticut State University in the first game of a Little East Conference doubleheader, and the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team went on to a split Tuesday evening at Clyde Washburne Field.
 
After giving up a two-out single in the first, Vilchez (11-6) did not allow WestConn (13-17, 5-7 LEC) another hit until the first two batters of the seventh singled. She threw 64 pitches for her third shutout of the season.
 
In the second game, WestConn scored three runs in the first and ended a seven-game losing streak at the hands of Eastern (14-13-1, 6-4 LEC) behind a complete-game five-hitter by senior righty Sydney Chenoweth (3-6) with a 5-1 victory. Chenoweth fanned two without a walk en route to her sixth complete game in 11 starts.
 
It marked the fourth time in five LEC doubleheaders that Eastern has allowed runs in the first inning of the nightcap after claiming the opening game.
 
In the first game, sophomore leadoff shortstop Emma Marelli (Waterford) drove in three runs with a two-out, two-run double in a four-run second inning and a single in the sixth and six different players scored runs in the game. First-year DP Taylor Lathrop (Enfield) also drove in a run in the second with a double, sophomore catcher Maddy Bowen (Hudson, NH) plated a run with a two-out single in the fifth, and No. 9 hitter Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) sent in a run with an RBI single in the sixth.
 
Graduate third baseman Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven), batting cleanup, reached four times with two singles and two walks and scored a run (with her pinch runner scoring another). She walked and scored the first run in the four-run second, reached on an infield single in the third, singled to left and her pinch runner scored in the fifth, and she was intentionally walked in a two-run sixth inning.
 
Marelli improved her team-leading batting average to .446 with her team-leading 12^th multiple-hit game of the year (fifth in the last six games) in the first game. Marelli is bating .667 (16-for-24) in her last six games.
 
In the second game, junior righty Maggie Rubeck (Easthampton, MA) and senior righty Emma Sands (Danbury) combined on a four-hitter, but  Brianna Malvino and Alexis Resto each drove in two runs for WestConn, which had lost five of its previous seven prior to the second game.
 
In five innings of relief, Sands allowed only two runs on one hit while fanning five and walking three. In her fourth start of the season, Rubeck was charged with three runs (two unearned) on three hits over the first two innings and left on the short end of a 3-0 score.
 
No. 3 hitter Kendall Allen, a freshman second baseman, drove in WestConn's first run in the first with a double and Resto plate the second and third runs of the inning with a two-out single. Malvino's two-run, two-out home run in the fifth – her first of the season and the only hit off Sands – made it 5-1.
 
SanGiovanni and first-year leftfielder Kaley Laird (Bristol) each had two hits for Eastern in the second game, with Laird driving in Eastern's run with a single that scored SanGiovanni's pinch runner, first-year outfielder Julia Boya (Coventry) in the fourth.
 
Eastern visits Plymouth State University (11-17, 3-7 LEC) in an LEC doubleheader Saturday at 1 p.m.