GORHAM, Maine – For most of Saturday morning's game, things seemed to be going to plan for the Keene State College baseball team. They plated a run in the first inning to take an early lead, added three in the fourth to make it 4-0, and then responded with a run immediately in the fifth after the University of Southern Maine had gotten within a run to make it 5-3. It stayed that way all the way until the bottom of the eighth, but unraveled from there, as the Huskies saw the first four reach and then delivered a pair of crushing swings as they went on to score eight times and won the 2026 Little East Conference championship with an 11-5 victory at Ed Flaherty Field.
KSC (26-17) had won five of the past six games in the series, but saw their bid for a first-ever repeat conference championship denied by the tournament's top seed who won their opening three games by scoring in double-digits in every one of them – beating Vermont State University Castleton 10-6, Eastern Connecticut State University 11-1, and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth 14-6 in which they scored 10 runs in the second inning after trailing 5-0 in the first. It did not seem like they were going to reach that today, as the Owls' first three arms limited them to just five hits over the opening seven innings. But late trouble hit KSC again, who in their defeats, was often victimized by big offensive eruptions for opponents. The eighth went bad quickly for the Owls, who eight pitches in were faced with a bases loaded, nobody out jam clinging to a 5-3 lead after Kaiden Morin beat out what was a sacrifice bunt attempt. James Main then moved the tying run 90 feet away with an RBI single four a fourth consecutive hit, and Drew Scialdone lofted a sacrifice fly to left off
Daniel Cantafi to tie it. Evan Baschnagel then pulled a go-ahead RBI double to put Southern Maine (30-10) ahead for the first time, but the inning kept getting worse. After intentionally walking Kyle Douin with first base open, Peter Keblinsky was plunked on a full count pitch to make it 7-5. After a pitching change, Caleb Vacchiano then delivered a dagger grand slam to left. Nine batters, eight runs – a season-changing sequence for both teams.
Had the Owls won, they would have forced USM – very much on the NCAA tournament bubble based on NCAA Power Index (NPI) rankings – into perhaps a must-win situation in a winner-take-all final game of the tournament. KSC would have battled their way fully out of the loser's bracket after a disappointing 7-4 loss to the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Thursday night. But in the end, as the Owls proved last year by running through the tournament's first three days, there is an advantage to reaching the final needing to be beaten twice and to hosting. This year, KSC needed to win two games consecutively yesterday – which they did, both by a run, and then would have also needed a pair of victories today (or this weekend depending on weather) – to successfully defend their conference title. It proved too much, as the Owls pitched to a 7.88 bullpen ERA on the season and the sheer amount of arms needed to get through the loser's bracket is always a major factor.
The loss marked the end of the career for a senior class that helped revive the Owls' program over the last four years under head coach
Justin Blood, with the highlight being the 17-2 run last season that helped deliver KSC an outright Little East regular season championship before the Owls allowed just six runs in four games while going 4-0 to win a conference tournament they hosted for the first time since 2008 – also winning it for the first time since the year, which was intermixed with a span in which Keene State went to the NCAA tournament four times in six years. Before they came, KSC was coming off a six-win season in 2022, and the program grew from there – moving to 13 wins in 2023, 21 wins in 2024 and a conference tournament appearance, and 25 victories a season ago along with the aforementioned titles. Including the postseason, Keene State is 33-8 (.805) in their last 41 conference games. A team that preached the mantra "Expect More" has set a new standard, which Blood and his staff will aim to continue to build.
"We came up short, but I'm extremely proud of this group for the fight and the effort they gave the past few days," he said. "This senior class helped us build back a strong foundation for the program. As always, it starts with good people that care about each other and the process. This class doubled down on all the expectations we could've had for them when they arrived in Keene. Despite graduating such a strong core, we have a lot of great pieces coming back next year. Exciting position players and a group of young pitchers that really performed well when we needed them to this spring. We have a good class coming in this fall and will expect to be right in the mix for an LEC Championship again next spring."
Blood will enter 2027 two wins shy of 300 for his career and nine wins away from reaching 100 with the Owls.
Today marked the 20th meeting between the two programs in the LEC postseason. Southern Maine had won the first six from 1999 through 2004, but KSC had rebounded to win six of the past nine, including knocking out the Huskies with a 4-0 home victory in the second round a season ago. The Owls were looking to recapture some of their magic from 2008, when they emerged from an early tournament loss to destroy USM 21-2 and 14-7 on their home field to take home their first LEC trophy.
The NCAA selection show will air mid-day on Monday, though the Owls are too low in the NPI rankings to have a chance at an at large bid, with early and mid-season losses – including with late leads – proving costly in that regard. But 51 wins over the past two years and a conference championship is a foundation laid for KSC, who will now aim to add more bricks and structure to it beginning with the fall season and continuing in the spring of 2027.
