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MANSFIELD, Conn. – First-year righty Elizabeth Mitchell (Coventry) pitched a  two-hitter for her second complete-game win in her last two home starts, and the Eastern Connecticut State University softball team parlayed six hits into seven runs in a 7-1 victory over Nichols College in the second game of a non-conference doubleheader Thursday afternoon at Clyde Washburne Field.
 
In the first meeting between the programs in 17 years in the first game, Nichols (13-5) senior righty Chelsea Indyk  overpowered the Warriors with a complete-game three-hitter, fanning eight with only one walk and getting ten outs on fly balls in the Bison's 4-1 victory. Senior cleanup hitter Erin Gour drove in two runs with a first-inning double and third-inning solo home run, and sophomore  Michaella Fortier drove in two insurance runs in the seventh with two-out, two-run pinch single in the seventh inning as the visitors won their 11^th game in their last 13 outings.
 
Mitchell economical in second-game win
 
In the second game, first-year third baseman Sam Healy (Cranston, RI) had three of the team's hits with two doubles and a two-run home run and scored three runs to back the pitching of Mitchell (3-5), who threw 62 of her 81 pitches for strikes in winning her second straight start with her second straight complete game.
 
Mitchell faced only five batters over the minimum, walking one and allowing hits in one inning while fanning three, with the Bison avoiding the shutout with an unearned run in the top of the seventh on a leadoff walk, infield fielding error and infield ground ball.
 
In recording her sixth complete game in eight starts, Mitchell retired the first six batters she faced, and after allowing a pair of singles in the third inning, retired 11 of 12 heading into the seventh inning, with the base-runner in that 12-batter stretch reaching on a two-out infield fielding error in the fifth.
 
Healy, whose third home run of the season provided Eastern with its only run off Indyk in the first game, doubled and scored to give Eastern a 2-0 lead in the second inning of the second game, belted a two-run home run in the fourth inning (her fourth HR of the year) to make it 4-0 and doubled leading off the sixth and scored on first-year DP Michaella Bowen's (Hudson, NH) two-out single for her first career run-batted in to push the lead to 7-0.
 

Sophomore shortstop Kaley Laird (Bristol), batting leadoff, walked twice and scored twice in the second game and handled nine fielding chances without an error, including a diving grab of a line drive by Nichols' Michaella Fortier for the first out of the fifth.
 
Batting third, junior catcher Maddy Bowen (Hanover, NH) drove in three runs with an infield ground ball that gave Eastern a 1-0 lead in the first inning and a two-out, two-run single that upped the lead to 6-0 in the fifth. Maddy Bowen also contributed one of the team's three standout defense plays when she dove in front of the plate to snare a foul ball to end the fourth inning. Defensively in the sixth inning, Healy came up with a hard shot to  throw out Riley Chartier at first for the second out of the inning.
 
Healy, who had only seven hits on the year prior Thursday, finished the doubleheader with four hits – all of them for extra bases (seven of her 11 hits this year have gone for extra bases).
 
Eastern visits the University of Southern Maine Friday for a 3 p.m. Little East Conference doubleheader. The Warriors opened their conference season by sweeping Vermont State University Castleton Saturday at Washburne Field while Southern Maine (6-10, 1-1 LEC) split its opening conference pair at Rhode Island College last Friday, winning 5-2 and losing 5-0.