Box Score  

BOSTON –  Denied a fourth straight Little East Conference softball championship last spring on what can be termed a "technicality" in the tournament championship game, Eastern Connecticut State University waited a year for redemption, and got it Saturday, capping a four-game run through the 2024 LEC softball tournament with a 2-0 victory over the University of Southern Maine to claim its fourth title in its fifth straight appearance in the championship round.

Now 17-2 in the tournament over five years, Eastern earned payback from a pair of one-run losses a year ago at Howard Spector Field, losing the title game in 12 innings on a rulebook technicality.

In four wins this weekend at the UMB Softball Field on the campus of top-seeded University of Massachusetts Boston, third-seeded Eastern outscored (21-7), out-hit (31-17) and out-defensed (3 errors to 5) its opponents and rode the resilient right arm (and productive bat) of graduate pitcher Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON), who was named tournament MVP for the second time in four years.

Vilchez (20-8), who shut out host Southern Maine (28-13) in the 2021 title game with a four-hitter in her first career start, shut out the fifth-seeded Huskies (28-13) on five total hits in back-to-back games in this year's tournament. After firing a three-hitter in Friday's 2-0 winners' bracket final, Vilchez returned Saturday to blank USM on two hits, throwing 98 pitches and giving up just one hit through four innings, then stranding five runners in the fifth and sixth before closing it out with her fourth 1-2-3 inning in the seventh.

The win guarantees Eastern a fifth straight trip to the NCAA Division III tournament – 25^th overall since 1982 -- as the conference's automatic qualifier.

USM entered the game as the conference's top hitting team with a .322 average while Eastern ranked first with a .974 fielding percentage.

Also the team's leading hitter (.410) this year, Vilchez scored the only run the team would need when she opened the third inning with a stand-up triple to right-center (chasing USM starter Lexus McIntosh in the process) and scored standing up on cleanup hitter Julia SanGiovanni's (East Haven) – also a graduate student – suicide squeeze-turned-bunt single. Eastern added an insurance run in the fourth when sophomore shortstop Emma Marelli (Waterford) – this year's second-leading hitter – doubled to left field with two out and came home when junior centerfielder Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) – the team's third-leading hitter – singled to left.

Vilchez, who had a 1.88 ERA in pitching all 26 innings in the tournament, escaped trouble in the fifth and sixth to preserve the shutout and the lead.  With two out and none on in the fifth, Vilchez put the tying runs aboard with a single and walk, but got No. 9 hitter Olivia Levasseur on a bouncer to Marelli at short. In the sixth, two Eastern errors helped load the bases with one out, but Vilchez induced a ground ball to SanGiovanni at third for a force at home, then ended the threat with a ground ball to junior second baseman Maddi Sauve (Mansfield).

The complete game was the 21^st in 24 starts and sixth shutout this year for Vilchez, who lowered her ERA to 2.13 in 187 innings. Her innings pitched are the fifth-most in a season in program history and her 35 appearances the fourth most.

In four games, senior rightfielder Sarah Remillard (Grafton) and Baker led the team with averages of .556 and .538, respectively, helping the Warriors to a .337 tournament mark. Remillard reached seven times and scored three runs and drove in one; Baker led the team with seven hits and six RBI; four of SanGiovanni's hits went for extra bases. She reached eight times with five hits and three walks. Vilchez reached seven times with three hits, three walks and a HBP, while Marelli reached six times with four hits and two walks and scored a team-high four runs.

Defensively, junior first baseman Maggie Rubeck (Easthampton, MA) handled 30 chances with just one error, while Sauve had ten putouts and eight assists without an error, Vilchez a putout and ten assists on 11 chances, and SanGiovanni was perfect on ten chances.

Eastern improved to 8-1 in championship round appearances while USM dropped to 1-6 when reaching the tournament's final day. The Huskies had won nine of 12 heading into play Saturday. After losing to Eastern Friday, the Huskies remained alive by beating  fourth-seeded Rhode Island College for the second time in the tournament Saturday morning in an elimination game.  To reach the tournament winners' bracket against USM Friday, Eastern had won twice Thursday, defeating sixth-seeded VTSU Castleton, 10-2 in five innings and overcoming an early four-run deficit to defeat second-seeded and defending champion University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 7-5, in a re-match of last year's title game at Clyde Washburne Field.

The LEC title is the fourth in five years for SanGiovanni and the third in four years for Vilchez and Remillard.