Box Score
HARTFORD, Conn. – Graduate right-handed pitcher Nathan Furino (East Haven) allowed only three hits and no earned runs through the first seven innings for his 20^th career victory and seniors Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) and Francis Ferguson (Holden, MA) each drove in a run with an extra-base hit in a three-run fifth inning to career the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team to a 7-4 non-conference victory over Trinity College Tuesday afternoon at DiBenedetto Stadium.
 
In his second start of the season and 67^th career appearance, Furino (1-0) took a no-hitter and a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth inning before allowing a leadoff single to Tyler Bernstein. Furino retired 18 of the 21 batters that he faced and led 7-0 through six innings before a leadoff error, a walk and two hits set up two unearned Trinity (1-5) runs in the seventh.
 
En route to his 20^th career win against only five career losses, Furino fanned five, walked two and hit a batter, throwing 89 pitches before being lifted in favor of junior lefty AJ Rooks (Coventry) to start the eighth. Senior righty Tyler Rice (Berlin) got the final two outs, facing the tying run at the plate and getting a swinging strikeout and infield ground ball to end the game.
 
In defeating Trinity for the 15^th time in 20 tries in Hartford, Eastern (4-2) collected 11 hits – seven of them for extra bases – off of six pitchers. Ferguson and senior first baseman Emmanuel Zaiter (Miami) both doubled twice and Soriano had a single and triple, scored twice and drove in a run.
 
Leading 2-0, Eastern tacked on three important runs in the fifth on three hits and an infield error to move out to a 5-0 lead. An error handed Eastern its first run of the inning, and with two out, Soriano tripled in the second run and Ferguson doubled in the final run.
 
Furino becomes only the 13^th pitcher in program history to win 20 games – the first since former two-time national Player-of-the-Year  and 28-game winner Shawn Gilblair in 2008. Among 20-game winners, Furino's winning percentage of 80.0 percent is fifth all-time and his seven career saves are second among 20-game winners only to former major leaguer John Caneira (1971-74).
 
All 12 of Eastern's previous 20-game winners have been inducted into the Eastern Alumni Hall of Fame.
 
Eastern visits the University of Hartford (4-5) Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Fiondella Field for a non-conference game before playing five games in four days in Florida beginning Sunday. It will be the Hawks' home-opener.
 
The meeting with Hartford (11-24-1 in 2024) will be the first in 40 years between the programs, with the Warriors having won all four in the series when the Hawks were members of Division II. Hartford, a current member of the Division III Conference of New England, has lost three of its last four this year, splitting with No. 12 Christopher Newport University and losing twice to No. 19 Penn State Harrisburg last weekend at Newport News, VA.