CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Eastern Connecticut State held off LaGrange 4-3 in the winner's bracket of Bracket 2 at the Division III World Series in a game that started at 11:05 p.m. CDT Saturday and ended at 2:08 a.m. CDT Sunday.
The Panthers (43-8) play Trinity on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. CDT. The winner will have to defeat Eastern twice to reach the championship series.
Eastern (46-3) struck for three runs in the second inning. Zack Donahue drove in the first two runs with a triple to left center. Donahue came home on Ryan Bagdasarian's sacrifice fly to give the Warriors a 3-0.
The Panthers threatened in the bottom of the fourth. McKinley Erves and Joe Ruth started the inning with back-to-back singles. Jack Layrisson walked to load the bases. Tommy Benincaso (7-0) came back to strike out the next two batters and got out of the jam with a fly out to right.
Dalton Brooks (6-2) pitched out of two bases loaded jams. The Warrior loaded the bases with two outs in the first and did not score. They loaded the bases in the fifth with no outs. Brooks battled back, striking out the next two batters and getting the third out on a ground ball to Chatham at short.
The Warriors added an insurance run in the seventh to take a 4-0 lead. Left fielder Gabriel Pallo prevented Eastern from adding a second run by throwing out Luke Broadhurst at the plate for the third out.
The Panthers broke through in the seventh, scoring three times to make it a 4-3 game. Jared Aldridge reached on a one-out infield single. Rhett Hebert was hit by a pitch, but the call was overturned after a review for the second out of the inning. Pallo followed with a single to left center to put runners on the corners.
Rhett Mixon dropped a hit into shallow center field, scoring Aldridge with the first run of the inning. Aidan Dunn came on in relief of Benincaso. Erves singled through the right side to drive in Pallo to make it a two-run game. Ruth's RBI single scored Mixon to make it 4-3.
Bryan Albee retired the Panthers in order in the ninth to record his fifth save of the season.
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