Box Score
RINDGE, N.H. – After hitting its way through the losers' bracket of the 2025 Little East Conference baseball tournament by collecting 30 hits and scoring 22 runs in a pair of elimination-round wins, the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team couldn't solve the offerings of four Keene State College pitchers as the No. 1-seeded Owls captured their first LEC tournament title in 17 years, 2-1, Sunday afternoon at Pappas Field on the campus of Franklin Pierce University.
The only team to beat regular-season champion and top seed Keene State (25-15) more than once in the regular season, Eastern (30-13) had a 13-game winning streak ended against the Owls, who gain the automatic berth to the NCAA Division III tournament awarded the LEC tournament champion.
The Warriors would have needed two wins over Keene Sunday in order to annex their LEC-leading 12
th tournament title.
Third-seeded Eastern awaits word on a bid to its 39
th NCAA tournament bid (fifth straight) when at-large bids are extended Monday at noon.
The Warriors followed up a 3-1 first-round LEC tournament win over fourth-seeded University of Southern Maine Wednesday by being mercied by fifth-seeded Rhode Island College, 12-2 in seven innings, Thursday. Eastern followed with a 9-5 win over second-seeded University of Massachusetts Boston and a 13-3 eight-inning rout of Rhode Island Saturday that landed it in its 16
th LEC tournament championship round against Keene.
Keene, which was 1-4 in five previous finals appearances (losing in consecutive years to Eastern in 2006 and '07), overcame 12-7, 13-7 regular-season losses to Eastern in games which featured 56 hits (15 for extra bases) to end its 13-game losing streak at the hands of the Warriors Sunday.
Making his second start this year against Eastern, senior righty Shea Zina combined on a four-hitter with three relievers, the foursome fanning nine and walking four.
Keene never trailed in the game, scoring single runs in the third and fourth off Eastern senior lefty
Francis Ferguson (Holden, MA). Zina pitched four shutout innings with six strikeouts and allowing only one hit before the Warriors got their lone run off junior righty Troy Brennan on senior centerfielder
Ray Leonzi's (Trumbull) conference-leading 12
th home run of the year leading off the fifth.
While first-year righty
Stephen Rickert (Williston, VT) and senior lefty
Dan Driscoll (Waterford) shut out Keene over the final five innings, Eastern managed only two baserunners after Leonzi's homer. In the seventh, junior second baseman
Dylan Jackson (Manchester) singled with one out, but junior lefty Jake Jachym (6-1) was summoned from the bullpen and got left-hitting Leonzi to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Making his 13
th appearance out of the bullpen, Rickert handcuffed the Owls on 3 2/3 innings of one-hit relief, striking out three without a walk in lowering his ERA to 1.86 ERA – tops among regular pitchers. Driscoll fanned two in getting the final four outs.
The one-run decision was the seventh this year for Eastern, which lost for the third time.
With its Saturday win over Rhode Island College, Eastern recorded its 34
th 30-win season.
In five tournament games, Jackson (.353) and Leonzi (.350) both batted over 300, with senior leftfielder
Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) at .300. Leonzi led all players with five runs scored. Soriano drove in a team-high five runs, junior first baseman
J.T. Clark (Bristol) and senior shortstop
Preston [Irby] Cosme-Cruz (Bridgeport) four each, with Cosme-Cruz, sophomore DH
Ian Moser (Bellingham, MA) and senior third baseman
Emmanuel Zaiter (Miami) scoring four times each. With four hits and three walks, Zaiter extended his on-base streak to 19 games – the top current mark on the team.
In addition to his team-leading batting average, Jackson handled 15 putouts in the infield without an error while Leonzi kept his fielding percentage perfect on 97 chances this year by collecting 13 putouts. As a team, the Warriors committed only three errors on 159 defensive chances (.981) in five games.
