WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Following Sunday afternoon's 3-0 loss at Cole Field to No. 10 nationally-ranked Williams College in the final non-conference road contest of the season, the Eastern Connecticut State University women's soccer hosts the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Wednesday before closing out the regular season on successive Saturdays in Little East Conference play.
 
The road loss Sunday was only the second against four wins and two ties away from Rick McCarthy Field and the first non-conference road setback after two wins and two ties for Eastern (5-5-3).
 
For Eastern, second-year junior Mackenzie Teper (Lisbon) made her first start of the season and first-year player Lilly Simpson (Norwalk) made the first start of her career.  Junior keeper Emily Wallace (Smithtown, NY) stopped a career-high 11 shots. Sophomore Briley Harnois (Attleboro, MA) who led last year's team in scoring and is this year's top scorer, as well, returned to the lineup in over two weeks, playing 15 minutes off the bench.
 
On Wednesday, Eastern shoots for only its second home win in six contests this year when it faces Coast Guard (5-6-2) at 6 p.m. in the seventh meeting between the program but first since Eastern's 9-0 triumph in 2009 at New London. Eastern has outscored the Bears, 22-3 in winning five of those six contests.
 
Eastern and Coast Guard have both beaten UMass Boston, tied Trinity College and lost to Babson College and Connecticut College. The Warriors defeated Westfield State University while the Bears lost to the Owls.
 
After Wednesday, Eastern closes out the regular season with Little East noon matches at Plymouth State University Saturday and at home against Massachusetts Dartmouth Oct. 29. Eastern shares third place in the conference with Castleton University (the teams played to a 1-1 tie Oct. 8). Plymouth (1-4-2 LEC) is seventh in the nine-team conference and closes its LEC schedule against Eastern, and UMass Dartmouth is ninth (1-5-0 LEC). The Corsairs host Castleton Saturday before closing against Eastern.