FARMINGTON – Ben Saviello has rarely enjoyed such luxurious run support this season, so when his Mt. Blue teammates jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in Tuesday’s Eastern A preliminary, he wanted to reward them.

The three-run first was enough for the senior right-hander, who limited No. 11 Edward Little to four hits to lead sixth-seeded to a 6-2 win at rainy Hippach Field.

Saviello also led the Cougars’ 11-hit attack with a pair of RBI singles. Steve Wells and Alex Martin collected a pair of hits each as well for Mt. Blue, which faces No. 3 Brewer in the quarterfinals Thursday.

“That’s probably the most runs they’ve scored for me in one game all year,” said Saviello, who didn’t yield an earned run while fanning five and walking one.

“That’s the first time we’ve scored in the first in about a month,” said Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin. “One thing all of this rain’s done is we’ve worked hard on bunting and stuff like that that we can do in the gym. Our bunting game today was a real key.”

The gym work paid off for the Cougars, who laid down three excellent bunts for base hits that proved to be keys in their three-run rallies in the first and sixth.

Martin dropped the first bunt single after Chad Boyker opened the bottom of the first with a double to put EL starter Matt Bennett in immediate hot water. Brian Wells followed with a double over the right fielder’s head to score Boyker and Martin, with the latter making a nice slide to avoid the tag at the plate. Saviello followed with his first RBI single to make it 3-0.

Bennett settled down nicely after the first, retiring 13 in a row on just 26 pitches, as the Cougars went to the plate hacking all game.

“It wasn’t as if Matt made bad pitches. They went up there looking for a pitch and they delivered on it,” said EL coach Scott Annear.

“The first time we played them, Bennett hit a batter on a curveball and didn’t walk anybody, so our goal today was the first good pitch we saw, we were going to swing at,” said Parlin, whose team lost to EL in extra innings during the regular season. “A couple of innings, it seemed like we didn’t give Ben much of a break.”

Saviello didn’t seem to suffer. The Eddies (6-11) put a pair of runners on base with two outs in the second, but Saviello got Brian Erickson to line out to first to end that threat.

Two Cougar errors allowed EL to plate a run without benefit of a hit in the fourth to make it 3-1. The Eddies threatened to make further headway in the fifth when Kyle Smith (two hits) led off with a triple to right. But Saviello knuckled down and got a fly out to shallow right, a strikeout and a ground out to third to hold the Eddies at bay.

“I felt good in that situation. You’ve got a leadoff triple and the top of the order coming up, guys who have delivered all year long,” Annear said. “But Saviello did a great job. He got the fastball inside with two strikes and he was tough on the tough hitters.”

The Cougars (12-5) gave Saviello some more breathing room in the sixth. Jake Hardy led off with an infield hit. Steve Wells then laid down a bunt to third and beat out the throw to first while a heads-up Hardy saw that third wasn’t covered and took the extra base. Saviello followed with another RBI single. After another bunt single by Chris Silva, Nick Webster made it 6-1 with a two-run single.

The insurance proved important as the Eddies got the tying run to the on-deck circle in the seventh. Roberge drove home Kenny Poulin with the Eddies’ second run on a fielder’s choice, but that’s as close as they got.