By Michael Letendre
WILLIMANTIC – For the Bristol duo of Chris D’Amato and Bunty Ray, getting the chance to play in a couple of NCAA Division III baseball World Series was quite a unique experience.
The squad from Eastern Connecticut State University has been a hotbed for baseball for many years and within four years in the mid-1990s, the Warriors went on to play for the National Championships twice.
The first trip in 1995 saw Eastern drop two straight games and was the first team eliminated from the championship round.
But in 1998, that all changed as ECSU won the national championship with seniors D’Amato and Ray helping to lead the squad.
And coming up in October, the Little East Conference is going to honor D’Amato, Ray and that outstanding squad.
The 1998 NCAA Division III national championship baseball team is being inducted into the Little East Conference Hall of Fame and will be honored as part of the Eastern Athletics Alumni Hall of Fame banquet Oct. 16 at the campus’s Student Center.
Both D’Amato and Ray were four-year players at Eastern Connecticut and made significant impacts on the 1998 title team.
That Eastern baseball squad was the second Little East Conference team in as many years to capture a NCAA Division III national championship.
The Warriors were an independent program for its run in 1995 while three years later, Eastern won its title under the LEC banner.
Little East Hall of Fame head coach Bill Holowaty led the team with an overall record of 40-11 which tied the program record for wins in a season at the time.
It was the third NCAA Division III baseball national title for the Warriors.
In 1998, Eastern won its second LEC regular season title by one game with a record of 12-2 – the first of nine LEC tournament championships for the team.
The Warriors defeated sixth-seeded Western Connecticut (5-4), third-seeded UMass Dartmouth (3-2) and fourth-seeded Plymouth State (17-2) to win the LEC title.
Following the LEC tournament, Eastern hosted the six-team NCAA Division III New England Regional Championship and defeated all the competition to record it seventh NCAA regional crown.
Eastern opened the regional with a 3-2 victory over defending NCAA Division III national champion Southern Maine before beating Trinity by a 9-6 final.
The Warriors then posted back-to-back wins over UMass Dartmouth (7-2 and 10-3) to punch its ticket to the national tournament.
Overall, eight regional tournaments were held, forty teams in total, and eight squads – including ECSU – all earned the right to compete at the national tournament site in Salem, Virginia.
The games were played at Salem Memorial Park for the third straight year and the Warriors got right to work.
Eastern opened play with a 9-3 triumph over Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
The squad then beat Aurora, 4-3, and Montclair State, 11-4, to advance to the championship round.
Eastern lost to SUNY Cortland in a contest that did not have elimination at stake before squaring off against Montclair State in the title game.
The Warriors won its final game, 16-1, to secure the 1998 national championship.
D’Amato, a senior co-captain, earned several postseason honors that year and might have been the program’s top player in the postseason.
He earned the New England Regional MVP award and was named the national tournament MVP as well.
D’Amato reached base safely in 19 of 22 plate appearances during national championship play.
He also played in the 1995 national championship as Eastern entered play that postseason as an Independent, going 28-12 overall.
The Warriors were 0-2 in World Series action in D’Amato’s freshman season but three short years later, the program won the NCAA III National championship.
