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MANSFIELD, Conn.  – Top-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University remained alive in the 2025 Little East Conference softball tournament Saturday with an 8-0, five-inning victory over Western Connecticut State University before being ousted in a season-ending 12-4 loss to fourth-seed University of Massachusetts Boston hours later at Clyde Washburne Field.

UMass Boston (31-11-1) overcame a third-round loss to third-seeded Plymouth State University to defeat the Panthers in the championship round, 8-6, Saturday night that forced a winner-take-all final Sunday morning, and rallying from a late two-run deficit to deny Plymouth its first LEC title with a 5-4, eight-inning victory in that game. All three of UMass Boston's LEC titles have come in the final against higher-seeded Plymouth.

In addition to beating Plymouth twice, UMass Boston defeated Eastern (21-18) twice. The Beacons trimmed fifth-seeded Western Connecticut, 2-1, on the first day of the tournament Wednesday, then downed defending champion Eastern, 6-1, on Thursday in the Warriors' first game of the tournament (the top two seeds are accorded byes).

Graduate righty Bri Melchionda, last year's LEC Pitcher-of-the-Year, pitched a four-hitter in a 3-2 loss to Eastern on the final day of the regular season when the Warriors clinched their tenth LEC regular-season title in the last 15 years. In the tournament.

After stopping Eastern with a two-hitter in the Beacons' 6-1 win Thursday – the Warriors' lone run coming on sophomore Reagan Lalor's (Danbury) first career home run  with one out in the fifth inning – Melchionda teammed with fellow graduate righty Jacqueline Cherry on a five-hitter in UMB's 12-4 victory on Saturday. In that game, UMB 2-3-4 hitters Haley Tilberry, Melchionda and Hayley Krockta combined to drove in 11 runs with seven hits.  

Melchionda, an LEC Player-of-the-Year candidate this year, was named tournament MVP after winning three of the team's game on the mound and reaching base 12 times.

In the 12-4 loss, Eastern led, 4-3, before the Beacons tied the game in the fifth on Krockta's two-out RBI single, went ahead with three runs in the sixth on two hits, three walks and a hit-by-pitch, and ran away with it by adding five more runs in the seventh, the big blow Melchionda's bases-clearing, two-out double.
 
WestConn, which bounced back from its opening 2-1 loss to UMass Boston with wins over sixth-seeded University of Massachusetts Dartmouth later Wednesday and second-seeded University of Southern Maine Thursday, was dominated by the offerings of Eastern first-year righty Elizabeth Mitchell (Coventry). Mitchell (16-8) pitched a complete-game two-hit shutout, striking out three and walking only one. Mitchell allowed only a leadoff single in the second and a leadoff double in the fourth, each time retiring the next three hitters of the inning.

While Mitchell was cruising, Eastern led 8-0 after three innings, finishing with nine hits. Junior DP Maddy Bowen (Hanover, NH), batting cleanup, reached in all three of her plate appearance. Bowen singled in the first two runs in a four-run first, singled and scored in a three-run third, and walked in the fourth. Senior first baseman Maggie Rubeck (Easthampton, MA) had two hits, scored twice and drove in two runs. Rubeck tripled in the third run of the first and came all the way around to score on a throwing error, and singled on a 3-2 pitch and scored on senior Alexis Boone's (Middletown) two-run pinch single later in the inning.

In three tournament games, Boone was 3-of-5 with a home run and four RBI, and Rubeck 3-of-8 with two runs and two RBI. Mitchell pitched all 19 innings, allowing 25 hits and eight walks while fanning seven and was charged with 16 earned runs. In 29 pitching appearances this year, Mitchell pitched 160 1/3 innings – one inning more than Molly Rathbun did as a freshman All-America in 2009. In the LEC regular season, Mitchell was 11-1 with a 1.62 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 86 2/3 innings.

In limited (52) at-bats, Boone led Eastern with a .481 batting average and .904 slugging average this year, She had 11 extra-base hits (team-high five home runs) and 16 RBI this year, while Bowen finished at .373 with a team-high 28 RBI.