Box Score
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. --  First-year senior  righty Rob Moynihan (Ledyard) tossed six shutout innings and the Eastern Connecticut State University baseball team bolted to an eight-run lead after two innings and went on to a 9-4 Little East Conference victory over VTSU Castleton Wednesday afternoon at Forbes Field on the campus of Middlebury College.

The win is the ninth in a row for Eastern (11-2, 2-0 LEC) and17th in 19 outings all-time against Castleton ( 5-14, 0-2 LEC), which has dropped seven straight and ten of its last 11.

The contest completes this year's two-game set against the Spartans for Eastern, which rode sophomore righty Stephen Rickert's (Williston, VT) complete-game three-hitter to a 6-0, six-inning win over Castleton Sunday at Holowaty Family Field in the first of a scheduled doubleheader. The second game was postponed due to unplayable field conditions.

Moynihan lowered his ERA to a staff-best 1.69 ERA (24 strikeouts/4 walks) in 21 1/3 innings by limiting the Spartans to three singles and a double while fanning eight and walking only one in a 77-pitch effort.

The first five Eastern batters reached safely (two singles and three walks) in the bottom of the first as the Warriors chased sophomore lefty Patrick Hallett – the first of five Castleton pitcher -- in scoring three runs. The Warriors tacked on five more runs in the second on four hits and two walks to move out to an 8-0 lead.

First-year junior leadoff hitter Matthew Carrera (Mount Sinai, NY) had three hits in the Warriors' ten-hit attack to raise his season average to .347, and scored twice, while junior second baseman Teige Kimbler (Albany, NY) had two hits and drove in four runs with two-run singles in the first and second. Senior catcher Hank Penders (Wethersfield) reached three times with two walks and an eighth-inning single, while senior leftfielder Lucas Malave (Toms River, NJ) reached three times with a single and two walks and scored runs in the first and second.

In his second appearance of the season, senior lefty AJ Rooks (Coventry) closed out the win as the fourth Eastern pitcher. Rooks pitched two shutout innings, allowing only one hit while fanning three and walking one.

The game against Castleton was Eastern's first of five in a span of five days. Eastern hosts Salve Regina University (11-1) in a non-conference game Thursday at 3:30 p.m., faces Plymouth State University in an LEC doubleheader Saturday at noon at Dunkin Park in Hartford and entertains Endicott College Sunday in a non-conference game at Holowaty Family Field at noon.

Ranked No. 3 nationally, Salve has won 11 straight since an opening 9-7 loss at Catholic University and is coming off Wednesday's 6-0 home conference shutout of WPI. The Seahawks reached last year's NCAA Super Regional and finished 36-9. The Warriors have downed Salve in each of the last two seasons and in three of the last four years.