Norwich — The Central Connecticut State University baseball team claimed its fifth Northeast Conference championship Sunday with a 6-3 win over Sacred Heart at Dodd Stadium, earning the Blue Devils an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.

The victory also marked the 500th of head coach Charlie Hickey's career at Central. Freshman TT Bowens, a Montville High School graduate, was named the tournament Most Valuable Player.

The Blue Devils (36-20) will find out their NCAA tournament destination when the bracket is revealed at noon Monday on ESPN2.

Bowens was also named to the All-Tournament team with seniors Tyler Coleman, Franklin Jennings and sophomore Tom Curtin. Bowens batted .636 (7-for-11) on the weekend with two home runs, five runs scored and three RBI. He added a double and a triple to hit for the cycle in the tournament.

Sacred Heart tied the game at 3-3 in the top of the fifth, but Central regained the lead with a run in the bottom of the inning. Bowens singled with one out and moved to second on a single by Jennings. Nick Garland followed with a single to center to bring Bowens around and make it 4-3.

The Blue Devils added a run in the sixth on an RBI single by Coleman to make it 5-3 and Bowens ripped a one-out double off the wall in left field in the seventh and came around to score on a single by Jennings to close out the scoring. 

H.S. boys' lacrosse

• No. 16 Barlow led 12-1 at halftime and went on to beat No. 17 East Lyme in a Class M qualifying-round game on Saturday. Sean Williams had two goals and two assists, James McCoy and Matt Boguszewski had a goal and assist each and Matt Bauman also scored for East Lyme, which ends its season at 11-8.

H.S. rowing

• Stonington's boys' first varsity eight finished fifth in its heat in 4 minutes, 35.16 seconds Saturday at the 71st New England Interscholastic Rowing Association Championships in Worcester, earning a trip to the nationals June 10 in Philadelphia.

Members of the boat were coxswain Alysha Johnson, Brendan McCann, Luke Monteiro, Sam Bunger, John Drago, Tyler Stafford, Nate Bury, Matt Planchon and Ryan Kilcoyne.

Road racing

• Chris Zablocki of Essex won the Delaney Dash in Old Saybrook on Saturday, covering the four miles in 19:11. Rachael Whitbeck of Deep River was the top women's finisher in 22:43, good for 28th place. Local runners finishing in the top 10 included Jon-Paul Mandelburg of Quaker Hill (fourth, 20:34), Jeff Wadecki of Ledyard (seventh, 20:58) and Sam Alexander of Mystic (10th, 21:13).