WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – This past weekend, the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team qualified automatically for its fifth straight NCAA Division III tournament by winning the Little East Conference tournament and will open play in its 25^th tournament beginning Thursday at noon at Virginia Wesleyan University.
 
Eastern (23-16) is seeded fourth in the four-team regional tournament and will face top-seeded and No. 8 nationally-ranked Virginia Wesleyan (35-8) in the first of two games on the first day of the three-day, four-team double-elimination tournament. In Thursday's second game at 2:30 p.m., third-seeded Gettysburg College (28-11) faces second-seeded Lebanon Valley College (33-8).
 
Three games are scheduled for Friday beginning at 11 a.m. and the championship round Saturday at 11 a.m.
 
The tournament winner advances to the Super Regionals May 23-24 against the winner of a regional between host Moravian College, Penn College, Roanoke College and Muskingum University.
 
A five-time national champion, Eastern shows an all-time NCAA record of 101-52 as one of two programs nationally to have won at least 100 NCAA tournament games.  Virginia Wesleyan has won three of the last six national championships, most recently in 2021. The programs have met only once, VWU winning, 4-2 at home in 2014.
 
Behind the complete-game pitching of graduate righty Alyssa Vilchez (Brampton, ON), Eastern won four straight LEC tournament games as the No. 3 seed this past weekend at the University of Massachusetts Boston to claim its fourth LEC title in the last five years. Vilchez shut out fifth-seeded University of Southern Maine by 2-0 scores in both the winners' bracket final and first (and only) game of the championship round. Vilchez allowed only one extra-base hit in 26 tournament innings, compiling a 1.88 ERA.
 
As a team, Eastern had a .337 tournament batting average and committed only three errors. Senior outfielder Sarah Remillard (Grafton, MA) was one of the team's four .400-plus tournament hitters. Remillard batted .556 in the tournament, junior centerfielder Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) .538 with six RBI, graduate third baseman Julia SanGiovanni (East Haven) .455 with four extra-base hits, and sophomore catcher Maddy Bowen (Hanover, NH) .429 without an error or passed ball. Vilchez batted .300 with a .500 on-base percentage and was named tournament MVP for the second time in four years.
 
This year, Vilchez' right arm and her left-handed bat have powered the team. Pitching, she is 20-8 with 21 complete games and six shutouts in 24 starts, having seen time in the circle in 35 of the team's 40 games. She has pitched 187 of the staff's 266 innings (70.3 percent). She also leads the team with a .410 batting average. Sophomore shortstop and leadoff hitter Emma Marelli (Waterford) is batting .382 (team-high 52 hits) with 14 stolen bases, 91 assists and a .970 fielding average, with junior centerfielder Maggie Baker (Hudson, MA) at .358 with 15 stolen bases.
 
Virginia Wesleyan qualified for the NCAA tournament as the automatic qualifier from the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), a tournament which it won for the 15^th time this past Saturday with a winner-take-all 4-1 victory over Roanoke College. A first-game, 9-4 loss to Roanoke in the first game of the championship round Saturday ended a 14-game VWU winning streak.
 
Sophomore lefty Emma Adams (19-2, 1.63 in 107 2/3 innings) leads the Marlins' pitching staff, with two teammates having pitched more than 60 innings, as well. As a team, VWU is batting .338 and is led by junior third baseman Mackenzie Myers (.413), senior rightfielder Julia Piotrowski (.358) – the MVP of the ODAC tournament -- sophomore shortstop Karley Beltran (.351) and sophomore catcher Olivia Knight (.350). Behind Piotrowski, Beltran and Knight (30+ steals each), VWU is second in the nation with 189 stolen bases (in 206 attempts).