WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – The Eastern Connecticut State University women's basketball team bounced back from a disappointing 29-point home loss Wednesday to score the first 13 points of the fourth quarter and close out the regular season with a 66-62 Little East Conference victory over the University of Massachusetts Boston Saturday afternoon at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.

Having previously secured the No. 1 seed in next week's LEC tournament, Eastern (18-7, 12-2 LEC) clinched the outright regular season title for the second season in a row after sharing the title with UMass Dartmouth in 2015. The Warriors, who have won 11 of their last 13 overall this year, finished with their most regular-season LEC wins since capturing  the 2008/09 regular-season title with a 13-1 record.

In first-round tournament games Tuesday, Eastern hosts eighth-seeded Rhode Island College at 5:30 p.m. and sixth-seeded UMass Boston (9-16, 5-9 LEC) unofficially visits No. 3 Massachusetts Dartmouth.

UMass Boston, which enters post-season having lost four straight and seven of eight, had four players score in double figures, led by senior guard Chantel Jordan with 19 points (along with a team high-tying seven rebounds). Junior forward Raven Kelsey posted a double-double for the Beacons, scoring 10 points and corralling 14 rebounds. Eastern also received 13 points from junior guard Kelly Reardon (Holyoke, MA) and 12 points from freshman forward Mya Villard (Cromwell).

Today's game also marked the final regular season home game for Eastern's three seniors, each of whom played a key role in the victory. Guard Julia DePoi (Brookfield) posted her sixth double-double of the season with 14 points and 14 rebounds, guard Jordyn Nappi (Southington) led the team with 15 points, and forward Lexis Foster (Groton) scored eight points, grabbed ten rebounds (surpassing 500 total in her career) and blocked three shots to breaking the all-time Eastern block record of 158. She has 160 in her career and a record 104 this year.

There were 12 lead changes and five ties through the third quarter, the Warriors holding to an eight-point lead after three.  The fourth quarter was a different story, however, as the Warriors scored the first 13 points, including a game-tying three-point shot by Reardon and a tie-breaking layup by Foster to grab a 57-52 lead with 4:32 left in the game.

Eastern built the lead as high as seven points in the fourth, before settling for the four-point victory. Foster, limited to 22 minutes due to foul trouble, hit one of two free throws with 16.8 seconds left to make it 64-60. After Kelsey failed on a three-pointer which would have made it a one possession game, DePoi grabbed the rebound and converted two free throws with 5.1 seconds left to make it 66-60. UMB scored an uncontested bucket at the buzzer to round out the scoring.

A back-and-forth game throughout the first quarter, Eastern led by three points going into the second quarter. UMass Boston took the lead with 7:57 to go before halftime and led by as many as six points three times during the quarter, before settling for a two-point lead at the break. Eastern retook the lead just over a minute into the third quarter until UMass Boston took control over the last two minutes of the quarter, breaking a tie with 1:53 remaining and building an eight-point lead heading into the final quarter.

Ranked fifth all-time in scoring, Nappi's point total moved her to within one of 1,400 in her career.