Box Score RINDGE, N.H. – Senior righty Matthew Wootton (Milford) shut out  fourth-seeded University of Southern Maine over seven innings and the third-seeded Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team scored two unearned runs in the sixth inning on the Huskies' only error of the game in a 3-1 victory in the opening round of the six-team, double-elimination Little East Conference baseball tournament Wednesday evening at Franklin Pierce University.
 
With its fifth straight win, Eastern (28-11) faces fifth-seeded Rhode Island College Thursday at 2 p.m. in the third of three tournament games at top-seeded host Keene State College. Rhode Island shut out second-seeded University of Massachusetts Boston, 7-0, in Wednesday's second game, while Keene State routed sixth-seeded and defending LEC tournament champion University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 12-1 in seven innings in the tournament opener.
 
Wootton (4-2)  allowed only two hits – leadoff singles in the fourth and fifth -- and a walk while fanning eight in lowering his LEC-leading ERA to 2.89. In the fourth, Wootton got a swinging strikeout and a ground ball double play to end the threat stranded a runner on second in the sixth with another swinging strikeout and fly ball to  senior Josh Cofrancesco (Southington) in right.
 
After Wootton was lifted after seven innings, Southern Maine scored a run in the eighth to cut the gap to 2-1, but the Warriors added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on senior catcher Hank Penders' (Wethersfield) infield ground ball that scored senior centerfielder Ray Leonzi (Trumbull). In the 2023 regular season, Wootton had thrown a complete-game shutout over Southern Maine, allowing only one earned run.
 
Senior righty Tyler Rice (Berlin) got the final five outs – but not without some drama in the ninth -- to record his LEC-leading fifth save. After USM scored its run in the eighth, Rice came on to leave the tying run on base with a swinging strikeout and infield ground ball to senior shortstop Preston [Irby] Cosme-Cruz (Bridgeport). Trailing 3-1 in the ninth, the Huskies put the loaded the bases with three opening singles (two of them of the infield variety), but Rice clinched the victory with three swinging strikeouts.
 
Leonzi had two of Eastern's six hits and scored two if its runners, while senior leftfielder Alejandro Soriano (Hartford) had a two-out single when the Warriors scored their insurance run in the eighth to extend his on-base streak to 41.
 
The win is Eastern's third straight in LEC tournament play over Southern Maine (20-18), which faces Keene State Thursday at 11:30 a.m.