BOSTON --  Freshman forward Hugh Lindo (Enfield) came off the bench for 12 points and a game-high 11 rebounds in 20 minutes as a balanced effort helped the Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team remain undefeated in the Little East Conference with a 71-58 victory over the University of Massachusetts Boston Saturday afternoon at the Clark Athletic Center.

At right: Hugh Lindo

In completing its third home-and-home conference sweep of the year, Eastern (16-5, 10-0 Little east) reaches double figures in conference regular-season wins for the fourth straight year after failing to reach that number through the first 24 years of the conference. The Warriors are 43-9 in regular-season conference play in those four seasons.

Defending conference champion Rhode Island College kept pace two games behind the conference leaders by rallying for a 75-70 overtime victory over visiting Keene State College Saturday. Eastern swept RIC this season.

In winning for the eighth time in its last nine games, Eastern never trailed in defeating UMass Boston (6-15, 0-10 Little East) for the tenth straight time. Behind eight points each from Lindo, junior forward Brandon Yarborough (Stamford) and junior guard Kevin Leumene (Stamford), the Warriors outscored the hosts by nine in the second half by shooting 56.2 percent and turning the ball over only six times.

Yarborough drew a change that disqualified 6-foot-9 inch senior Kadeem Coulter on fouls that set up a basket by senior forward Mike Garrow (Terryville) to put Eastern up by 12, and Lindo stole the ball and dunked on the breakway soon after to make it 69-53 with two minutes left.

Sophomore guard Trachone Preston (Enfield) of Eastern led four double-digit scorers with a game-high 16 points, nine of them coming when he canned three of his four three-point field goals in the first half. Garrow added 14, Lindo 12 and Leumene 11. Lindo was 6-for-8 from the floor and sparked the Warriors to a 24-8 advantage in offensive rebounds (+27 overall rebounding advantage in the game) by snaring six. All five of Yarborough's boards came on the offensive glass. Eastern tops the LEC in rebounding margin.

Despite ranking sixth in the conference in free throw percentage, UMass Boston converted 17 of 19 from the stripe and gave the ball away only nine times, but shot only 35.2 percent from the floor and was crippled by its lack of rebounding. UMass Boston was coming off a mid-week non-conference victory that had snapped a nine-game losing streak.

Since the conference expanded from its original number of five teams, no conference team has gone unbeaten in the regular season. In a 12-game regular season, UMass Dartmouth lost once in back-to-back seasons beginning in 1993-94. In the current 14-game regular-season, Keene State (2003-04)  and Rhode Island College (2008-09 and 2012-13) have also lost only once.

Eastern visits Keene State College Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The Warriors routed the Owls, 84-53, in the first meeting Jan. 22 at Geissler Gym.